As the world increasingly grapples with the impacts of climate change, businesses are stepping up to take responsibility for their carbon footprints. At Techwave Solutions, we made a bold commitment to achieve carbon neutrality across our operations by 2025 and become a net zero business by 2030. Now, almost a year into this journey, we reflect on our progress, challenges, and the road ahead as we work towards integrating sustainability into the core of our operations.
A Radical Transformation: Sustainability at the Heart of Our Operations
The transition to a net zero business at Techwave Solutions is not just about reducing emissions—it’s about a complete overhaul of how we operate. This transformation touches every part of our business, from procurement and IT operations to our people policies and business models. Achieving our ambitious targets requires radical change, and it’s a journey that will have far-reaching impacts on our entire organization.
Leadership plays a crucial role in this transformation. Our CEO has made it clear that climate action is central to our company’s priorities, setting the tone for the rest of the organization. This top-down commitment has empowered every level of the company to embrace the entrepreneurial spirit needed to drive authentic and meaningful change.
Authenticity and Transparency: Cornerstones of Our Net Zero Commitment
In today’s business environment, claims of sustainability are often met with skepticism due to the prevalence of greenwashing. At Techwave Solutions, we are committed to transparency in our sustainability efforts. When we announced our new sustainability targets, we did so with a pledge to be fully transparent about the scope of our efforts.
This commitment to authenticity is crucial as we work towards our net zero goals. We believe that the only way to achieve real progress is through bold ambition coupled with complete transparency. This is why we have outlined our focus areas and have been open about the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
Accelerating Our Journey: The Net Zero Transformation Roadmap
As we progress on our journey to net zero, we have developed a ten-stream sustainability transformation roadmap. This roadmap serves as the foundation of our efforts, guiding us as we work towards our ambitious targets.
The first step in this journey was establishing strong executive governance. Last year, we formed our Net Zero Board, which includes our CEO and CFO, along with other key executives. This was complemented by the creation of a cross-functional committee, which brings together leaders from various parts of the organization. These two groups, supported by a dedicated team, have been instrumental in accelerating our sustainability actions.
In line with our commitment to science-based targets, we had our new carbon reduction goals validated by the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi) as being consistent with the 1.5°C climate science pathway. We also joined the RE100 initiative, committing to transition to 100% renewable electricity by 2025.
Cascading Targets and Building Regional Action Plans
One of the major milestones in our journey has been the cascading of our global targets to the country and function levels. Recognizing the regional specificities and business models across our operations, we developed detailed action roadmaps tailored to each region. By the end of 2023, we had completed roadmaps covering over 70% of our global workforce, with plans to address the remaining regions in the coming months.
Central to this process has been our environmental management team, which oversees our globally certified Environmental Management System. This team has played a pivotal role in ensuring that our sustainability efforts are aligned with international standards and best practices.
Collaborating for a Net Zero Future
While internal efforts are essential, achieving our net zero goals requires collaboration with clients, partners, NGOs, and suppliers. We recognize that the scale of transformation needed for a net zero world is immense, and collaboration is critical to achieving it.
Since joining the Race to Zero campaign, we have also engaged in global initiatives such as the World Economic Forum’s 1 trillion trees campaign. Our CEO is an active participant in the World Economic Forum’s Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders, a community dedicated to driving climate action across sectors.
Our people are also key to our net zero transition. To bring our entire workforce along on this journey, we have accelerated our sustainability learning pathways and launched new tools to calculate the carbon impacts of our client engagements. Understanding the carbon footprint at the client level is crucial not only for meeting our targets but also for supporting our clients in their sustainability challenges.
Driving Change in Core Impact Areas
Operationally, we are making significant progress towards transitioning to 100% renewable electricity. By the end of 2023, several of our global operations were fully powered by renewable energy, with plans to expand this transition across our entire real estate portfolio.
In addition to energy transition, we have launched a new global travel policy that prioritizes carbon considerations in travel decisions. We are also transitioning our company fleet to 100% electric vehicles by 2030 and have conducted extensive surveys to understand and reduce the carbon impact of employee commuting.
Continuing Our Net Zero Journey
While reducing carbon emissions remains our primary focus, we recognize that there will always be some residual emissions that cannot be eliminated. To address this, we are finalizing our carbon offsetting approach, with a focus on nature-based removal projects. More details on this will be shared soon.
As we look ahead, the journey to net zero is far from over. The challenge of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels is immense, but at Techwave Solutions, we remain committed to pushing forward. We will continue to extend our sustainability focus, working collaboratively with our clients, partners, and suppliers to support their sustainability journeys as well.
In conclusion, our progress over the past year is just the beginning. As we continue on this path, sustainability will remain at the core of our operations, guiding us towards a future where net zero is not just an ambition but our new normal.
