Strahlender Sonnenschein in einem grünen Wald

Good work
needs a good climate

Content

Green business
Our approach
- Avoid
- Reduce
- Offset
Our partnership

Doing the right thing

An intact environment is a requirement for doing successful business. Why? Because people can only realise their potential if they have good and healthy living and working conditions. Therefore, we regard climate and resource protection as essential, both from an ecological and an economic perspective.

“Doing the right thing” – based on this central corporate value, we have made the fight against climate change a central aspect of our corporate responsibility. Since the end of 2021, Hays has been a climate-neutral organisation by offsetting unavoidable greenhouse gases. We are proud of that. However, this is no reason for us to sit back. While we are currently still focusing on the offsetting of greenhouse gas emissions in many areas, we are going to reduce them more and more in the future.

We are actively working on climate protection measures to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. This means that they have been tested according to scientific standards and are suitable for helping to limit global warming to a maximum of 1.5 degrees. You can find more information about our global climate goals here.

Green business

Our aim is also to think ahead and consider how our expertise in specialised personnel services can help to implement the resolutions of the Paris Climate Agreement - in other words, how we can help to ensure that global warming does not exceed the 1.5-degree limit. This is why we have established the ‘Green Business’ division, which we use to advise our clients on climate protection issues and recruit highly qualified sustainability experts for them.

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Our approach

How we avoid carbon emissions

Avoid

The best emissions are those that are not produced at all.

Find out here how we avoid CO₂.

How we reduce our carbon emissions

Reduce

Less is better – therefore we are working on reducing our carbon footprint.

Learn more about our reduction targets.

How we compensate unavoidable greenhouse gases

Offset

We offset unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions with climate protection projects.

Avoid

Green electricity in the Hays offices
Renewable energies: Since 2014, the electricity for all our branch offices has come exclusively from renewable energy sources. The same applies to new branch offices.

Our offices are deliberately easy to reach by public transport

Good accessibility: We choose locations for our branch offices that are easily accessible by public transport and near a railway station, if possible.

Avoiding business trips through digital networking
Digital connectivity: All of our employees at the different sites are connected to one another via a digital communication platform. We equipped all branch offices to use video conferencing, making many business trips obsolete.

Saving paper consumption through digital signatures

Digital signature: Where possible, we use digital signatures in contract management to speed up processes and save paper.

Reduce

Driving to meet a customer, flying to a meeting, commuting to work – most of the carbon emissions from Hays are associated with our mobility. That’s why we are focusing our efforts on mobility as the starting point for reducing our carbon footprint. We therefore decided to focus on this issue.

In Germany, our "Future Mobility" project helps us achieve our reduction targets. The Porsche subsidiary MHP, which has many years of experience with mobility concepts, advises us on this subject. The "Future Mobility@Hays" project is about a modern app-based mobility budget for our employees entitled to a company car. As an alternative to the company car, app users can choose from 22 sustainable modes of mobility including rail journeys, car-sharing or "JobRad" (bike leasing for employees).

Since 2019, a travel guideline has obligated all Hays employees to consider the environment when planning a business trip. As a result, we were able to reduce the number of domestic flights considerably even before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hays also pays attention to environmentally friendly alternatives when it comes to mobility

Offset

In order to achieve “Carbon Net Zero”, we offset the amount of emissions that we cannot save. To achieve this, we are working with a renowned company: ClimatePartner calculates and analyses our emissions and supports us in target modelling. In addition, the company verifies our emissions data and acquires internationally certified carbon credits on climate protection projects for us.

In the short and medium term, we have invested in a reforestation project in eastern Uruguay: The Guanare project encompasses 22,000 hectares of previously degraded agricultural areas to be regenerated to forest – with the aim of storing about seven million tons of CO₂ over the course of the project and to annually absorb almost 130,000 tons of CO₂. The project has been independently reviewed and supports five of the United Nations goals for sustainable development (UN SDGs). In the long term, we will focus on innovative investments in carbon sequestration to physically remove CO₂ from the atmosphere.

Since the end of 2021, Hays has been climate-neutral through compensation payments and is a ClimatePartner-certified company. With this external certification by ClimatePartner, the climate protection measures of Hays plc, including the carbon footprint, reduction targets and measures as well as the financed climate protection projects, can be viewed transparently.

Further information