Carbon action plan

What Mott MacDonald can do: purchase highly efficient appliances; use low energy bulbs; maintain essential systems; aim to use green suppliersAs part of our ongoing commitment to reduce our carbon footprint per capita by a minimum of 5% year on year we have produced a summary of our Carbon Action Plan, in which we outline what we have done so far and how we intend to achieve our target.

Reducing our carbon emissions

We see sustainability as one of the key agendas for our business. We take a holistic view of sustainability, which applies to every sector in which we work. Through our services we are able to play a major role in developing the sustainability agenda during all phases of project lifecycle.

As the world grapples with the growing evidence that climate change is happening and will have significant future impacts, society is increasingly concerned about greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile many of our staff are committed to living sustainably in their personal lives – as an employee-owned company Mott MacDonald shares their concerns. We feel an ethical obligation to reduce our emissions and resource use.
What we can all do: use less water; adjust thermostats to cut energy use; use double-sided printing; turn off monitors, PCs and printersThis brings benefits to our own business. It also helps our customers, as many are now counting their suppliers’ carbon footprints when auditing their own.

We have committed to reducing our per capita emissions by 5% year on year. This will be achieved by increasing carbon consciousness and encouraging behavioural change among staff, improving our offices and equipment, and aiming to use tele- or video conferencing in preference to travel.

Reductions have been measured against our first Group-wide carbon footprint calculation – approximately 33,000t of CO2, or 2.86t per employee. This was based on 2007 energy bills for many of our principal buildings and records of travel by air and car logged through our expenses process and in-house travel agent.

For 2008, we have calculated that our carbon footprint equated to 2.77t per employee. Even though there was no concerted action before mid-2008 to reduce emissions, our footprint per person was 3% lower than in 2007. In 2009 we have changed our accounts and expenses claims system, enabling us to accurately record distances travelled by all modes of transport.

Read further in our carbon footprint page.

What we all can do: recycle our waste; make conference calls; try car sharing; only boil what is neededWhat we can all do: use public transport; avoid unnecessary flights; use recycled paper; switch off the lights