Creating impact in the community at Deloitte
Deloitte is committed to protecting and enhancing the environment, and that includes promoting initiatives to improve biodiversity. The Green Agenda programme dates back to 2008 and Deloitte integrated their commitment to biodiversity into their objectives in 2013. When they started to think about how they could make an impact in this area, they faced what seemed like a challenge. Because the offices in Ireland are all located in urban areas with limited external landscapes, their opportunity to make a positive impact on biodiversity was somewhat restricted. They soon realised that we could make the biggest impact by engaging with stakeholders to deliver improvements. They are proud to contribute in a positive way to improving biodiversity for the benefit of society.
Stakeholder Engagement
To show their commitment to biodiversity, the first step was to offer a biodiversity related project to their people. We did this on IMPACT Day, an annual event which sees people at all levels across the firm get involved in volunteering projects on a day in September. For the last number of years, Deloitte have partnered with An Taisce to carry out a beach and sand dune clean up on Bull Island on IMPACT Day. Volunteers on this project take practical steps to protect the habitat on the island and also learn about the flora and fauna on the island. To date, 119 people have participated in this project. In 2017, Deloitte introduced lunchtime Grow-It-Yourself workshops. These popular workshops promote the many benefits of growing your own food, for health, wellbeing and biodiversity. They explored the importance of pollinators for growing food and how to create a pollinator-friendly garden, enhancing employee understanding of how biodiversity contributes to our daily lives. We have also provided a space for employees to grow their own food on Deloitte’s top floor balcony and enhanced this area with pollinator-friendly plants.
Employee Awareness
Deloitte have a dedicated Green Agenda intranet site which explains the role biodiversity plays in our everyday lives. Their bi-monthly Green Agenda newsletter also promotes awareness of key environmental topics, including biodiversity. The newsletter highlights internal and external biodiversity related events such as their GIY workshops, awareness days and community events. Everyone who joins Deloitte is required to complete our environmental e-learning course. This course introduces Deloitte’s significant environmental impacts, the measures we take to mitigate these and advice for people on how to reduce their own environmental impact.
Carbon and environmental management is one of our areas of expertise. Learn more about it.
