• Global strategy to enable sustainable lifestyles for all our stakeholders
• Carbon reduction commitment for business and stakeholders
• Digital global initiatives to build connections between stakeholders to spark local action

Why this matters

As one of the world’s largest media and digital communications groups we have a significant environmental footprint and we take our responsibility to manage and minimise it seriously. Increasing energy costs, resource scarcity and the potential for new environmental legislation are factors which will directly impact our own businesses profitability. In addition to this our clients, employees and the end consumer are becoming increasingly aware of environmental issues and we believe that we are in a unique position to help influence and educate them to deliver a positive environmental outcome.

To achieve this, in addition to managing our own internal impact, we also look to focus on the environmental impact of our supply chain and the media campaigns we plan and buy by working in partnership with key stakeholders.

We also want to enable sustainable lifestyles through reducing the environmental impacts of the use and disposal of the products by consumers.

Environmental impacts and targets

Our principle environmental impact is our own core energy consumption, including the use of gas, oil and electricity which enables us to do our job. We also measure the environmental impacts resulting from business travel, our waste production, our water, and our paper consumption.

We aim to measure the emissions related to these environmental impacts, not only for us as business, but for all our stakeholders in the value chain. By measuring and then looking to reduce these emissions we can achieve our goal of enabling sustainable lifestyles. Recognising that there are environmental impacts related to the media campaigns that we plan and buy we also aim to roll-out initiatives to measure and reduce their carbon footprint where possible, in partnership with a selection of our clients.

Target 2015: We will reduce our carbon footprint, per full time employee, by at least 20% by 2015, and work with our clients and key suppliers to help them to do the same.

We will achieve this by:

• Raising internal environmental awareness and activity through our Green Bean network of environmental champions to drive behavioural change using global campaigns as well as local initiatives
• Working closely with facilities and procurement managers to achieve the Aegis Media Green Standard (equivalent to ISO14001) in the markets most material to our business
• Engaging internal and external stakeholders around a global environmental initiative which uses digital technology to take locally relevant steps to reduce our carbon footprint in our value chain
• Developing initiatives around measuring and reducing the carbon footprint in marketing campaigns, working in partnership with our clients, suppliers and media vendors