Business Focus
DELOITTE’S CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY “The challenges presented by the climate crisis are enormous and no organization can solve them singlehandedly. The greatest impact will come through the collective action of like-minded organizations, people, innovators and non-governmental organizations.” – Punit Renjen, Deloitte Global CEO
Deloitte WorldClimate Climate change is not a choice. It’s billions of them. Mitigating the impacts of the climate crisis is a monumental task. But together, we can drive positive change. Progress is possible if we act collectively, and it is vital that we all take urgent and immediate action. To do our part to help the world achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, Deloitte has launched WorldClimate, our strategy to drive responsible climate choices within our organization and beyond. We recognize change starts within. Deloitte is committed to taking measurable, decisive action on climate change, empowering Deloitte professionals and engaging the broader ecosystem to create solutions that facilitate the transition to a low-carbon economy. At Deloitte, we engage and educate our employees on climate change impacts decisions about what they consume, use, and buy – to enable our people to make positive climate choices at home and work and amplify these through their networks.
From Deloitte’s new Sustainable Actions Index comes a portrait of people bringing sustainability into the mainstream. Because our choices are profoundly shaped by their context— by what our friends, family, colleagues, and communities do—the impact of individual action can extend beyond the immediate effect, subtly influencing the behaviors of those around us. Personal efforts toward living a more sustainable life matter. It’s less about the individual emissions avoided by walking rather than driving and more about the example the act sets for others. So how do we build societal support for a low-carbon transformation? To help answer that questions, we created the Deloitte Sustainable Actions Index which shows how small shifts in attitudes can add up to big changes in where people work, what they buy, and what they expect from their leaders. Our goal is to understand what inspires individual and collective action on sustainability-oriented behaviors. This analysis can be applied to understand how close (or not) we might be to societal tipping points in behaviors and identify the levers companies and governments can use to both respond to and encourage, the broader adoption of proclimate norms.
Constructing the Sustainable Actions Index To better understand the individual and collective roles that people play in addressing climate change and sustainability, we asked respondents to Deloitte’s Global State of the Consumer Tracker about how sustainability factored into three dimensions of their lives: in their personal choices, their civic participation, and in their workplace through asking the participants a series of questions: Personal choices: these questions asked about the sustainability choices people are making on a day-today basis. Do they recycle or compost? Have they taken measures to reduce energy usage or get their energy from renewable sources? Do they try to buy more locally, avoid or consume less meat, or choose more sustainable products? Workplace concerns are related to people’s engagement with sustainability at their jobs. We asked questions about people’s expectations of their employer’s sustainability actions, how a potential employer’s position on sustainability would factor into their decision to accept a job, and if people would consider changing jobs to work for a more sustainable company.
