Our responsibility
To minimise as far as possible the environmental impacts associated with our business and enable employee participation, with a particular concentration on the reduction of energy use and its effect on global warming.
Our environmental impact is relatively modest given the scale of Experian’s global operation. Nevertheless we do produce significant amounts of carbon dioxide through our energy use and business travel. Our total carbon footprint this year was 76,000 tonnes, which is just under 20kg for every $1,000 of our turnover. 58,000 tonnes of this originated in our buildings.
The growth in our business conspires to push up our energy demand and the associated CO2 emissions. We strive to keep them down through a programme of steady energy efficiency improvements; including the installation of voltage trimmers, sensor-controlled lighting and energy reduction campaigns involving our people. Where we can, we buy renewable energy.
Business travel accounted for 18,000 tonnes of CO2, mainly from flights taken by our US and UK teams as a result of the continuing globalisation of our business. However, the tough economic climate has resulted in us scrutinising travel more closely, which is beginning to have some effect in reducing these figures in the UK and US.
Our global facilities team has developed and communicated our environmental policy, which has been endorsed by the board. Through our facilities managers and a network of enthusiastic environmental champions, we are driving a series of projects to tackle energy use, water and waste. Our data centre managers are particular champions; we know that our data centres represent a large proportion of our carbon footprint so we have made specific investments this year that are already beginning to contribute energy and cost savings.
All over the world we are collecting materials for recycling, and doing what we can to further minimise our global environmental impact.