Employee suggestions drive reduced carbon footprint and enhanced Investors in the Environment accreditation for the CIPD

The CIPD has secured the Investors in the Environment (iiE)silver accreditation after impressing auditors with a robust environmental sustainability strategyand environmental management system. A range of policies, initiatives and monitoring systems have enabled us to significantly reduce ourscope 1 and 2carbon footprintsince we were first awarded the Bronze accreditation in 2023.

The biggest impact came following an employee suggestion to close our head office on Fridays, which helped us to:

• cut our electricity use by 21%
• reduce our gas use by 27%
• shrink our waste by 27%.

I'm thrilled to see employee ideas and creativity making such a big difference to our environmental impact. Silver accreditation is an important step in our sustainability journey. Next stop: Green accreditation!

Angela Attah, Director of Legal and Governance, CIPD

Other initiatives that contributed to these impressive reductions included turning off some non-essential lighting, replacing lightbulbs with LEDs, reducing water leakage, stopping some of our IT systems from running 24 hours a day, and switching to a green tariff for our electricity supply.

The iiE auditors also praised us for our work to improve sustainability in other areas of our operations:

• We've added a standard on environmental sustainability to the business acumen core knowledge of the Profession Map
• We've published external guides and thought pieces on environmental sustainability
• We've integrated sustainability into our external learning content
• We've held ESG (environmental, social and governance) sessions at our flagship Annual Conference and Festival of Work events
• We've moved our People Management magazine to a quarterly publication schedule to halve the print frequency.

Our accreditation follows recent news of us joining the United Nations Global Compact, and winning the 'best newcomer' the 2023 iiE Awards. We're now working with our internal Green Group to make further improvements to meet the criteria for green accreditation - the highest iiE accolade - with a focus on reducing our business travel emissions.

Having a positive and sustained social and environmental impact should be a priority for all businesses and their leaders. Explore how you can embed environmental sustainability initiatives into your organisation with real-life case studies from global organisationsDeloitte, SUEZ and Smurfit Kappa Group plc. Unearth practical tipsfrom our dedicated guide, and get a better understanding of the impact of inaction by listening to our podcast.

As the professional body for experts in people, work and change, we have a huge responsibility to inspire organisations to become more sustainable - both by ensuring our own house is in order and by sharing good practice with our members.

Angela Attah, Director of Legal and Governance, CIPD