News | Stories
2022 Progress Report: Sustainable Operations
Each year, we track several indicators that show progress toward achieving our sustainable-operations goals. The trends revealed by this data show us where we need to stay the course and where we need to make changes.
We calculate total annual electricity consumption by summing the electricity use of each of our leased offices. For offices that are not individually metered, we estimate use by dividing the whole building’s consumption by the proportion of the building we occupy. We have reduced electricity use since 2018 by designing more energy-efficient spaces when moving to new offices and by implementing energy-efficiency measures in existing offices.
Total fuel consumption is the sum of each office’s heating fuel use, which is the whole building’s fuel consumption divided by the amount of space our office occupies. Fuel consumption has decreased over the years due to increased energy efficiency and, in some cases, building electrification.
Our total carbon footprint captures the carbon emissions of our offices in five categories: electricity consumption, heating fuel use, airplane travel, employee commuting and office waste. The pandemic led most employees to work from home, considerably decreasing our employee-commuting and business-travel emissions. But from 2020 to 2022, as employees transitioned into a hybrid work schedule, these types of emissions rose. Despite this increase, we still surpassed our overall emission-reductions targets and have seen a 44% decrease in absolute emissions from 2018 through 2022. Our purchase of offsets and renewable energy certificates (RECs) brings our total emissions reduction to 58% over that same time frame.
Average carbon footprint per employee is calculated by dividing our total carbon emissions by our number of employees. Visualizing emissions per capita showcases the emissions intensity of the firm, irrespective of overall growth.
This graph indicates the amount of carbon dioxide equivalent reduced from the purchase of offsets and Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). Airplane business travel was at its highest in 2018, leading us to purchase the most offsets that year. The year 2020 saw a low of offsets purchased due to minimal air travel. Air travel in 2022 is still lower than 2018 numbers and more offices opted to purchase Renewable Energy Certificates in 2022 than in previous years.
Our per capita electricity use emissions with the purchase of RECs is a measure of the emissions intensity of electricity use per person. It takes into account the renewable energy certificates we purchased each year. In addition to reducing overall electricity consumption by implementing improved energy-efficiency measures, more offices than ever before opted to purchase RECs this year, replacing 59% of our U.S. energy use with renewable power.
We estimate Air-travel emissions via a regression model formula that uses the dollar amount of business air travel claimed on employee expense reports. We saw a dramatic decrease in business travel in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19. While the number spiked in 2022 due to a return to normal business operations, we’re committed to reducing emissions from air travel by minimizing the number of flights we take.
Note for energy and emissions charts: Data does not include estimates for post-2018 acquisitions in baseline year (2018) totals.