Environment

Why this matters to PwC

When it comes to the environment, we are – quite literally – all in it together. In October 2006, a ground-breaking report from Sir Nicholas Stern sought to connect the science on global warming with the potential impact on our economies and our way of life. The report showed that aside from its wide-scale ecological impacts, global warming could shrink the global economy by 20%. There is a growing awareness across society that environmental responsibility is critical to all our futures.

What we do

As a business, our greatest environmental impact comes from the carbon emissions created by our office energy use and business travel.

Over the past three years we have reduced our total carbon emissions by 45%. We have achieved this by buying over 90% of our energy from renewable sources, improving our space efficiency to reduce heat and light requirements, conducting energy audits to identify problem areas, installing low energy lighting, and with your help, implementing local energy saving initiatives.

To reduce our air miles, we have made a substantial investment in phone and video-conferencing and now have new or upgraded facilities in all of our major offices. Last year we were able to avoid 1.1 million miles of travel through your use of telesuite facilities, thereby avoiding the emission of 198,000kg of CO₂.

                                                                                                                                                

To encourage reduction in car miles, our Green Fleet Initiative provides advice on cleaner fuels and vehicle selection. We also provide interest-free season ticket loans, the 'Cycle to Work' scheme, and cycle and shower facilities in many of our offices. Where car usage is unavoidable, PwC and Masterlease have teamed up with The CarbonNeutral Company to provide you with the opportunity to make your motoring carbon neutral. Whether you have a car through our Choices car scheme or have your own, you have the option to join our G

We are constantly looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint. In March 2007 we announced that our business operations in the UK, including all business travel, will be climate neutral by the end of this financial year. Our primary focus will be on reducing emissions and we are working with the Carbon Trust to develop a comprehensive emission reduction plan.

We will continue to look for energy-saving opportunities including awareness programmes about switching off electronic equipment at night – and putting renewed emphasis on travelling less. Business travel is a necessary part of the way we do business but we can always challenge ourselves on the need and frequency of travel, choose to use the most climate-friendly mode of transport, and accept individual business travel reduction targets.

We recognise that some emissions are unavoidable – which is why we have made a three-year commitment to offsetting the firm's residual greenhouse gas emissions from office energy consumption and business travel. The firm has sourced carbon credits from a portfolio of projects with Climate Care, including new carbon finance for two projects in India and South East Asia providing sustainable energy to local communities from wind turbines and biomass generators. We hope to boost confidence in investing in similar small scale renewable energy products.

For the buildings we occupy, we always aim to site them in locations easily accessible by public transport. We also insist on buildings with a good environmental performance – for our new London building architects BDP produced a sustainability specification which means that this building will meet the highest BREEAM standard of 'excellent', as must any new building we specify. Refurbished buildings will be brought up to the next best rating of ‘very good’.

Our environment agenda also includes waste management and reducing our use of resources – notably paper. Over the past three years you have helped us slash the proportion of our waste disposed of in landfill by 80% by supporting initiatives such as desk-top recycling boxes, and local recycling facilities. We have also cut paper consumption by more than 20% over the same period – supported by an initial roll-out of energy-efficient multifunction devices (MFDs) which print and copy double-sided, saving paper and toner.

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