Sustainable at heart - our story so far

In a year when the UN found progress towards more than 80% of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals is weak, and our daily news feeds are full of the latest disasters, it can be difficult to focus on hope and practical action.

However, we believe transformation is possible, and indeed inevitable. PwC’s latest global Net Zero Economy Index 2023 finds record deployment of wind and solar this year. Meanwhile, PwC’s State of Climate Tech 2023 finds the share of private market investment rose to 11.4% in Q3 2023. We need these trends to become a surge.

PwC Channel Islands’ recent Hopes & Fears Survey finds that 53% of local workers agree their employer has a responsibility to take action to address climate change, but 32% do not feel their employer is taking enough action.

So, we were delighted here at PwC Channel Islands to be recognised in the new “Sustainable at Heart” category at the recent Jersey Finance Sustainable Finance Awards. This award honours businesses who put sustainability and the environment at the heart of everything they do.

We’re decoupling business growth from greenhouse gas emissions. We still have a long way to go, but we want to share examples of our progress so far in the hope this helps others.

We have been carbon neutral across our Channel Islands’ operations and business travel since 2007, using high-quality verified carbon credits. We are a Jersey EcoActive Business Leader and hold the ISO 14001 environmental management standard.

In 2020, PwC announced a worldwide commitment to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions with near-term science-based targets set for 2030, independently validated by the Science Based Targets initiative in 2021. This means that, here in the Channel Islands, we’re working to:

• Reduce scope 1 and 2 absolute emissions, and absolute business travel emissions, by 50% from a 2019 base by 2030. We also purchase 100% renewable electricity.
• Ensure 50% of our purchased goods and services’ suppliers have set science-based targets to reduce their own climate impact by 2025
• Transition our carbon credit portfolio to 100% carbon removals by 2030.

All staff have an annual performance objective to support our sustainability strategy and we provide mandatory training.

We've allocated business travel carbon budgets for each line of service and built a dashboard to empower our employees to track their emissions. We're also setting individual carbon budgets for our top travellers.

30% of PwC Channel Islands’ suppliers have so far either set, or are working on, science-based targets and we’ll continue to encourage others.

We challenge our audit clients on climate risk and are making our own corporate climate risk disclosure this year. We support our clients with sustainability strategy, business transformation, reporting and assurance. We also take opportunities for ESG integration across all client engagements.

We're passionate advocates for "Jersey for Good" and the responsibility Jersey has to finance the transition to a more sustainable future.

Please do get in touch if you are interested in learning more or exploring opportunities to collaborate.