EY announces 'carbon negative' ambition

Wednesday 17 February 2021

EY has announced plans to become 'carbon negative', reducing its total emissions by 40% and achieving net zero in 2025.

The firm says committing to sustainability is an integral part of its NextWave strategy and ambition to create long-term value for all stakeholders.

 Key elements of the ambition include the following. 

• Reducing business travel emissions by 35% by FY25 against a FY19 baseline. 
• Reducing overall office electricity usage and procuring 100% renewable energy for remaining EY needs, earning membership to the RE100, a group of influential organisations committed to renewable power, by FY25. 
• Structuring electricity supply contracts, through virtual power purchase agreements (PPAs), to introduce more electricity than EY consumes into national grids. 
• Providing EY teams with tools that enable them to calculate, then work to reduce, the amount of carbon emitted when carrying out EY client work.
• Using nature-based solutions and carbon-reduction technologies to remove from the atmosphere or offset more carbon than EY emits, every year.
• Investing in services and solutions that help EY clients profitably decarbonise their businesses and provide solutions to other sustainability challenges and opportunities.
• Requiring 75% of EY suppliers, by spend, to set science-based targets by no later than FY25. 

“EY has set this ambition because it is increasingly clear that, collectively, we need to do even more to help avert a climate change disaster," Andrew Dann, Channel Islands Managing Partner, said.

"EY people are proud that we met our ambition to become carbon neutral in 2020. Inspired by our people and others undertaking major steps, we challenged ourselves to go further, faster. We are deeply concerned about the science and what that means for our planet.

"We believe that becoming carbon negative in 2021 and net zero in 2025, reducing our emissions in line with a science-based target, is the right ambition to have. We realise that these challenges are different and more difficult for certain industries. That is why there are also investments in new solutions and services to help EY clients protect and create value from becoming more sustainable too.”