Tuesday, 5 November 2024
22.7 C
Durban

Professional services firm joins the race to net zero

Home Infrastructure Environmental – Green Industries Professional services firm joins the race to net zero

PROFESSIONAL services firm WSP Global recently announced its commitment to ambitious climate action to achieve net zero emissions across its value chain by 2040. To support this goal it set greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets.

Alexandre L’Heureux, WSP’s President and Chief Executive Officer said these have since been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) – a partnership between CDP, the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute (WRI) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

“We are pleased to announce these commitments and join other organisations in leading the way on urgently tackling climate change,” L’Heureux said, adding that through this pledge, WSP will join the “Race to Zero”, which brings together a coalition of leading net zero initiatives.

Together, they aim to build momentum around the shift to a decarbonised economy ahead of COP26, the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference taking place later this year.

“The net zero announcement and promise are well aligned to our ethos as an organisation,” said Mathieu du Plooy, Managing Director for WSP in Africa. “Our 2020 Global ESG Report, for example, demonstrates our ongoing efforts to accelerate meaningful change and we are already reporting 43% clean revenue – defined as revenues earned from services that have a positive impact on the environment and support the UN SDGs – across our international business.”

The company has also been recognised by World Finance Magazine as an ESG leader for the third year in a row.

Du Plooy believes that the transition to a low-emissions society can create opportunities to address the socio-economic challenges for a number of markets across Africa. “For example, we know that addressing the ageing building stock, and ensuring green building principles are applied to new developments, is a key area in terms of cutting emissions.

“By leveraging energy retrofits and applying green and efficient energy designs to new builds, we can rapidly create easily accessible jobs, cut emissions and provide more liveable cities,” he said, citing the example of another developing country, Chile, which is taking advantage of the decarbonisation agenda to drive domestic renewable energy initiatives and create jobs and business opportunities.

“Climate change plays a lesser part compared to the improvements in living standards for Chileans, but the result in terms of emissions is the same. And the challenges faced in African markets are not that dissimilar that we couldn’t adopt similar thinking.”

Most Popular

SAICE calls for robust reporting mechanisms to combat intimidation

THE challenge of ethical project delivery within the civil engineering community is significantly complicated in the wake of rising issues of intimidation and the...

Freight forwarders want enhanced private sector involvement and reforms in SA’s ports

IN the aftermath of the recent High Court judgement on the Durban Container Terminal (DCT) Pier 2, the Southern African Association of Freight Forwarders...

Prospecton-based auto manufacturer honoured at SA Autoweek

THIS year’s instalment of SA Autoweek celebrated a century of vehicle manufacturing in South Africa. The festivities culminated in the Naamsa Accelerator Awards event...

A healthy farming sector supports a healthy nation

OPINION | AGRICULTURE is synonymous with food production and, in South Africa especially, employment creation. But the sector’s importance extends into the socio-economic realm...
رومابت ماه بت پین باهیس bettingmagazine.org بت کارت یاس بت یک بت مگاپاری اونجابت آلوین بت betboro بت فا 1win بت وینر 4shart.com 1xbet giriş وان کیک بت وین بت ریتزو بت وان ایکس بت بت فوروارد