News

Carbon-neutral firm wants to be catalyst for change

By Song Jingli (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-09-07 15:45

A.T. Kearney fulfilled its 2007 pledge to become carbon neutral this year, and now wants to use its position as a global management consulting firm to promote carbon neutrality to its clients.

The company, which has 1,700 consultants in 54 offices in 37 countries, emitted 45,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalents in 2009, John E. Yosimura, A.T. Kearney's chief operating officer, told chinadaily.com.cn.

Bernhard Hartmann, Magaging Director, Greater China [Provided to chinadaily.com.cn]	John E. Yosimura, A.T. Kearney's chief operating officer [Provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

To offset this amount of carbon, the company invested $1 million in projects which have positive effects on the environment. Most of them are Clean Development Mechanism projects.

"The investment is only one measure to become carbon neutral. What is most important is to be more conscious, internally, about our own set-up in offices, in the ways we travel and in our discussions with our clients," said Bernhard Hartmann, managing director for A.T. Kearney's business in China.

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Yosimura said the carbon neutrality initiative itself is an incentive "because we have to change our behavior, or we have to buy more carbon offsets next year".

The firm's carbon neutrality campaign is part of a broader initiative designed to deliver sustainable, environmentally sound results to its global client base. "We can't tell our clients they should do this if we ourselves are not willing to do it," Yosimura said.

"In this way, we can be the catalyst for change" said Hartmann.