Acting on carbon: the building blocks to Net Zero - our 15 year journey

Setting the scene

The last fifteen years have been important ones for the climate change agenda. Certainly, there has been growing momentum behind a collective will to tackle greenhouse gas emissions, including the international climate agreement in Paris in 2015.

The effects of climate change on our planet are already being felt acutely across the globe, creating one of the largest challenges for society, business and nature. Hurricanes and wildfires are devastating communities, coastlines are threatened by storm surges and sea level rise, water availability is changing, and vast areas of land are becoming infertile. The social and economic consequences of these changes are widespread, with the poorest people who are least equipped to cope often affected the most.

How we helped

PwC has been working to reduce the carbon emissions associated with its operations since 2007.

We began our journey by focusing on carbon emissions from our buildings, as these were the emissions we had most control over and ability to influence.

We adopted four complementary approaches: operating differently, consolidating our office space into fewer properties; refreshing our real estate to adopt sustainable designs; and investing in new technology as well as switching to renewable energy sources.

The programme later extended to the containment of our business travel, especially for internal purposes, as well as the decarbonisation of our supply chain.

Making a difference

Between 2007 and 2022 we reduced the greenhouse gases associated with our scope 1 and 2 emissions by 98% in absolute terms. Moreover, we reduced our overall carbon footprint, including emissions associated with our travel, waste and materials, by 83% - whilst growing our business by the same amount - evidencing the decoupling of our business growth from our environmental impacts.