Annual report for the fiscal year from 1 July 2011 to 30 June 2012

50
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Environment
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166
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The number of printers we have
already disposed of. We avoid printing
things out wherever possible.
Mobility is not an end in itself
The platform building also has another major advantage –
the Zurich office offers excellent transportation links for
both clients and employees. The central location of the
building in the immediate vicinity of the Hardbrücke train
station makes an extremely important contribution to
reducing environmental pollution caused by traveling.
Mobility is a hallmark of our globally positioned organization
and is one of the requirements associated with the
globalization of the economy. We are aware of this problem
(see page 10) and are therefore raising awareness of
the issue among our employees at all locations, encouraging
them to use public transport and also offering
appropriate incentives to do so (see interview on page 52).
Data checks keep emissions in check
We strive to make traveling redundant if it does not actually
add value or if alternative methods of communication
could be used to replace an external meeting. For this
purpose, we are providing employees with mobile videoconferencing
facilities and we have installed convenient
conference telephones in the offices. We believe that there
is further potential to be tapped in this area. It is vital that
employees are kept informed and are on-board with these
plans. The WotF initiative also fits into the mobility issue.
Despite all of our successful efforts, the business trips
that we do make by plane or train ultimately cause the
emission of greenhouse gases. We are monitoring this
situation very closely and on an ongoing basis. Transport
emissions also occur in principle when sending items
through the mail. We therefore joined the Swiss Post
Office’s “pro clima” program for business clients a while
ago. Since the beginning of 2012, the Swiss Post Office
has absorbed the additional costs for domestic letters as
part of this program, while Ernst & Young will continue to
pay a small surcharge on all other mail items to compensate
for CO 2 emissions.
Indirect emissions of greenhouse gases are also caused
by the provision of the energy and district heating that we
consume. CO 2 emissions made directly by us are caused,
for example, by the natural gas heating systems in place
in some of our buildings. As we are a knowledge-based
company that does not manufacture any physical products,
we only generate a small volume of business-related
greenhouse gas emissions. This is reflected by the fact that
our “Scope 1” emissions from direct energy utilization
(oil and natural gas heating systems) and our “Scope 2”
emissions from indirect energy utilization (electricity
and district heating utilization) are exceeded considerably
by emissions in connection with business trips.
At this point, we should note that our emissions are
comparatively low and the compensation payments via the
post office are not large enough to be of importance economically.
Given our cost structure, potential price hikes for
energy as a result of climate policy will also be of little
consequence. In light of this, the issues of climate change
and climate protection do not represent a significant business
risk for Ernst & Young. We therefore do not need to
carry out a formal, quantitative assessment of the financial
consequences of climate change for our company.
On the other hand, the issues of climate change, environmental
protection and sustainability have created demand
among our clients, which we are happy to meet. We already
have good experience with our Climate Change and Sustainability
Services (CCaSS) and cleantech solutions.
Further details can be found in the “Marketplace” chapter
of this report.
Central printer stations
If you want to speak of the “products” that Ernst & Young
generates, there are essentially only two of note – information
and knowledge. The outputs of these products are
only visible and tangible in the form of the workpapers and
reports that document our findings and are submitted to
our clients. Wherever possible, we work electronically and
not with paper printouts. In order to keep the unavoidable
printing activities as environmentally friendly as possible,
we are increasing our efforts to work with central printing
stations instead of having printers at each employee’s
individual workstation. To this end, 166 printers have been
removed from service in the current reporting year. In
2012 and 2013, we aim to remove a further 80 printers
from service, which equates to 35 percent of the current
inventory. All of the central printers in our new printing
system allow duplex printing and have a double page function.
This not only saves on paper, but also on toner. We
aim to have duplex printing as standard in all of our systems
by the end of 2012; this setting will only be able to be
Annual report 2012