Accenture has won a Net Impact Green Challenge award for its efforts to promote sustainable environmental practices in the offices and communities in which our US employees work and live.
Lisa Neuberger, senior manager-Management Consulting & Integrated Markets, led the effort to form an advisory group of employees who worked together to collect success stories, share best practices and deepen understanding of the areas that could have the greatest potential impact on reducing Accenture’s environmental footprint.
The inaugural competition, sponsored by Seventh Generation and Office Depot, is intended to show how US companies and graduate students are improving the world through positive environmental change. Judges evaluated the projects based on the measurable difference of environmental impact, their strategic plan, the creativity of the approach and the stakeholder engagement process. Accenture is one of three winning corporate entries.
“The Accenture Green Challenge team’s goal is to help US Accenture employees become better environmental stewards of our company and leave less of a ‘footprint’ in the communities in which we work,” Neuberger said. “As part of our corporate citizenship efforts to bring high performance to our communities, these activities benefit the communities and build understanding among our people about how to individually influence change.”
The team of more than 70 Accenture employees focused on reduction opportunities in the areas of travel and facilities. Among the proposed solutions were reducing travel where possible through the use of video conferencing, developing and promoting employee environmental guides and tools with incentives, piloting environmental project toolkits for client teams to use to develop customized environmental strategies, and launching a program to celebrate Accenture “environmental heroes” once these other initiatives are in place.
The “greening” of AccentureIn its submission to the Net Impact Green Challenge, Neuberger and her team cited the new Boston office, which opened in February 2007, as a prime example of the “greening” of Accenture. They described how the office is designed to save energy and resources by making daylight available to 75 percent of the workspace. Enclosed offices are equipped with motion-activated lights and plumbing fixtures reduce water usage by 20 percent. The ceiling grid is 90 percent recycled material and the drywall is 100 percent recycled paper facing.
The team also highlighted how Accenture raised its green initiatives to a new level with the July 2007 opening of the new San Francisco office, which is designed to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) accreditation. And as part of efforts to manage Accenture facilities in an environmentally-conscious way, US Facilities & Services is partnering with Cartridges for Kids to launch a new recycling program that will also raise funds for Junior Achievement in local communities.
“The Green Challenge team has really energized our efforts in how we manage our facilities and internal operations to make a positive environmental contribution,” said Tom Pate, managing director-US Geographic Services. “Although we had efforts under way, the team’s passion and broad participation have driven the effort forward in a way that simply would not have happened without them.”