Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability
Workplace Sustainability
Promoting workplace sustainability is a prerequisite of sound environmental policy and a necessary complement to our core business activities.
In all that we do, we strive to find sustainable solutions that make business sense and minimize our impact on the environment – whether we are retrofitting an existing building in Beijing, buying servers for a data center in London or executing a contract for waste disposal services in New York.
Since the release of the Environmental Policy Framework in 2005, we have focused on three operational priorities with the following successes in 2011:
Promoting energy-efficiency and reducing our carbon footprint, with
a goal of managing our carbon emissions to zero by 2020
In 2011, we reduced our absolute carbon emissions by 7% with enhancing operational efficiency as a key driver. Specifically, we improved energy efficiency across our facilities through some of the following initiatives:
- Optimization of IT hardware and replacement of legacy equipment and enhanced utilization of virtualized servers and dynamic cloud computing
- Further consolidation into more energy efficient data centers and office space
- Lighting retrofits, adjustments to chilled water temperatures and cooling system modifications, including air conditioning optimization via installation of motor speed controls
- Completed implementation of in house PC ”sleep mode” power management solutions
Maximizing the use of universal green building standards
In 2011 our Sunriver office in Bangalore, India, became our fourth office in the Asia Pacific region to be recognized as a leader in energy and environmental design by the United States Green Building Council (the “Council”).The building achieved a Gold certification for incorporating design characteristics of high standards for water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. It followed similar recognition for our buildings in Beijing, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore also achieved in 2011. These offices represent a combined addition of 200,000 square feet to our existing green building portfolio of over 4 million square feet of office space.
Upon the completion of eight additional green building projects now in the pipeline, about half of our real estate portfolio will be certified by the Council. We will continue to focus our efforts in this area, recognizing that one of the greatest ways we can make an impact is to reduce the one we leave on the environment.
Responsibly managing waste and the sustainability of our supply chain
- To provide greater transparency regarding our operational impact we began reporting our global water consumption and eWaste (electronic waste).
- We diverted 89% of our construction waste and 56% of the firm’s business waste from landfills around the world through recycling, composting and waste-to-energy initiatives. In addition, 100% of the firm’s e-waste was recycled or repurposed by ISO 14001-Certified vendors.
- To support sustainable procurement we became members of the Carbon Disclosure Project’s (CDP) Supply Chain Program in 2011. We dedicated our first year to surveying 50 of our suppliers whose operations may have significant environmental impact. Participation in the CDP Supply Chain Program not only provides insight into ways we can more effectively engage and partner with our vendors, but also informs the further development of our own sustainable procurement strategy.
For more information on our efforts to minimize our operational impacts, please review our 2011 Environmental, Social and Governance Report and for additional carbon-related disclosures, please see our Carbon Accounting Methodology and Verification Statements provided below.