GOOD WORK
NEEDS A GOOD CLIMATE
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 is a carbon neutral organisation. 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.
For this purpose, we continuously quantify our emissions to identify the areas in which we can reduce them. By 2030 at the latest, we aim to cut our global emissions by 50 percent compared to the levels in 2020. You can find more information about our global climate goals here.
Green business
We also aspire to thinking further and considering how our expertise in specialised HR services can help implement the decisions of the Paris climate accord – in other words, how we can contribute to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. According to estimates by the International Labour Organization (ILO) of the United Nations, the green economy will create about 24 million jobs in the coming years. Recruiting experts for positions in climate and environmental protection already plays an important role for our customer businesses. To ensure that we can provide even better support to businesses around the world in this area, we are building relevant talent pools.
Our approach
Reduce
Less is better – therefore we are working on reducing our carbon footprint.
Offset
We compensate unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions with climate protection projects.
Avoid
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.
Good accessibility: We choose locations for our branch offices that are easily accessible by public transport and near a railway station, if possible.
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.
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.
Offset
In order to achieve “Carbon Zero”, we compensate 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.
Hays has been carbon neutral since the end of 2021.
Your contact person
Swanhild Klink
- Hays AG
- Willy-Brandt-Platz 1-3
- 68161 Mannheim

