Environmental
Our direct environmental impacts relate principally to energy and resource usage at our office buildings and our business travel.
In addition, we have a number of indirect impacts, as a result of the media mixes we plan and buy, and the execution of campaigns and projects for clients across the world. We are currently working on innovative approaches to achieve a clear understanding of these impacts in order to manage and reduce them over time.
Green Bean initiative
Green Bean was launched in Isobar in 2005. It is a self-help
sustainability programme, promoted globally and activated by
passionate Green Bean champions in Isobar agencies around the
world. The initiative covers five categories: saving energy;
reducing water; reducing waste; cutting down on travel-related
pollution; and being a force for good.
To date, Isobar agencies in 14 markets have participated, along with Aegis Media Asia-Pacific and Carat Sponsorship. Green Bean provides the toolkit and stimulus for Isobar agencies to reduce resource consumption and adopt sustainable behaviours across the world. Through the Green Bean Awards, we can measure progress against a number of targets across its categories. In 2007 the Green Bean Award was jointly won by OneDigital in Australia and iProspect in the US. Green Bean now has a proven track record as a catalyst for sustainability in our group. As a result, we intend to make Green Bean the prototype programme for both Aegis Media and Synovate globally. The Group-wide adoption of Green Bean will start in 2008.
Sustainability workshop
In October we held our first Sustainability Workshop, in
conjunction with the Future Foundation and The Ecologist. Attended
by 60 people from across Aegis, the event explored sustainability
themes including insight into the ethical consumer, understanding
the trends in sustainability, what this means for brands and what
it means for our own business. This was the first in a planned
programme of events which will also include sessions at the annual
conferences of both Aegis Media and Synovate during 2008.
Internal communications
During 2007 both
Synovate and Aegis Media Asia-Pacific introduced regular columns
into their staff publications, outlining steps employees can take
to manage their environmental impacts.
Global procurement policy
We are currently working on a major new Group-wide procurement
initiative, to be completed in the course of 2008. Our new policy
will formalise existing practice and make sustainable procurement
consistent across the group, and will cover areas including energy
and water, IT and stationery, as well as property and travel.
Property
We have limited immediate control
in many cases over property, being a tenant not a freeholder in the
overwhelming majority of our buildings. However, along with travel,
our resource usage, including energy and water, has been the
primary focus on our baselining exercise, and we are working on
policies that we can implement in partnership with our landlords,
as detailed below.
Travel
Our baselining exercise shows that
travel per employee accounts for an average of 1.5 metric tons of
CO2 annually. International travel is a reality in a group like
ours, in 70 countries, but we are committed to reducing our travel
footprint significantly, as set out in the targets below.
Our targets
- Green Bean: start the roll-out of ‘Green Bean: new generation’ across selected regions and businesses in 2008;
- Sustainability workshop: further sessions in 2008 and diffusion of learnings around Aegis;
- Procurement: introduction of standard review schemes including CSR considerations in supplier selection process by end of 2008 on worldwide basis; introduction of supplier assessment forms for all IT equipment supplies, office supplies and food consumables, in accordance with ISOs and other domestic standards and sustainability indications in key Western markets by end of 2009; definition of specific standards by product categories by end of 2009; introduction of all the above combined with standard business terms and conditions and a standard selection process by end of 2009;
- Energy and water: working with landlords to develop policy and standards for in-house renewable energy supplies and reduction of draw on national grid supplies by 2010; introduction of standard Green office policy by end of 2008, to include recommendations on tap drinking water where possible and roll-out of water conservation methods in lavatories; bottled water policy where regions will ensure local water sourcing only;
- Stationery: 60% of paper to be recycled paper by end of 2010; reduction of consumption of paper related products by office by 20% by end of 2010 against current baseline; standardisation of paper and ink specification in all priority western markets by end of 2009;
- IT: introduction of shared initiatives with suppliers (eg: end-of-life) by end of 2009 through global tender; standard utilisation/replacement policy for hardware by end of 2008;
- Property: assessment of Green certificate (where applicable) as part of property approval process; policy on key LEED or BREAM and other elements for consideration in assessing new buildings for leases and acquisitions in the UK and Asia by end of 2008;
- Travel: introduction of global umbrella travel policy that recommends video-conference usage and ensures management sign-off on travel by end of 2008, with active promotion of desk top video-conference capability and usage; employee car share policies and bike scheme policies in all western countries (subject to local legislations by end of 2009); 20% reduction of total miles travelled by air per capita globally by 2010.