In 2011 we commenced Our Green Journey, our 10-year strategy to decouple business growth from our environmental impacts. To date we have made good progress towards the ambitious goals we set out to achieve by 2020. We have reduced our total carbon (CO₂e) emissions by 7 per cent against our 35 per cent per full-time employee (FTE) target, our CO₂e emissions from energy consumption by 10 per cent against our 30 per cent per FTE target and our water consumption by nearly 10 per cent against our per cent per FTE target. These results have been possible due to significant investment in our offices and a real desire from our people to support our environmental agenda.

To raise awareness of Our Green Journey we have undertaken a number of flagship programmes. We partnered with GiveMeTap – a social enterprise that funds clean water projects in Africa – to provide our people with 5,000 reusable water bottles. The GiveMeTap proceeds has helped to install a borehole that will provide access to safe, clean water to a community of around 850 people in Kpakpalmuni, Ghana.

We have continued to invest in our IT infrastructure to maximise the benefits it brings to our environmental programme. Our use of video-conferencing, Lync and online collaboration tools helped us to reduce our emissions resulting from business travel by 5 per cent against our 25 per cent per FTE target, while the roll-out of secure printing across our estate has contributed to a reduction in paper consumption of 18 per cent against our 20 per cent per FTE target.

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  Creating a Sustainable Workspace: Leeds Office

  Through Our Green Journey we have put an emphasis on placing sustainability at the heart of everything we do, including the space we work in. Our recent office refurbishment at City Square in Leeds followed this philosophy, creating another sustainable, distinctive office for our portfolio.

We recognise the importance of partnering with our supply chain to further progress our sustainability programme. Last year we committed to engaging with 20 of our key suppliers, holding workshops which culminated in the release of our new sustainable procurement policy. In October we began to source 100 per cent recycled paper in our offices, saving 364 tonnes of virgin paper, equivalent to around 8,700 trees. We also continue to procure green electricity wherever possible and this year procured 95 per cent of our electricity from green sources. This year, we have also gained the commitment of all of our service providers with staff working on Deloitte sites to reward those employees in line with the UK living wage initiative.

In the coming year we intend to push on with the above programmes and place a particular focus on reducing our business travel; optimising the performance of our estate; and continuing to seek a more sustainable supply chain.