Ricardo commits to public and verifiable environmental performance pledges

Following its commitment in September this year of achieving Net Zero carbon emissions in its operations by the year 2030, Ricardo has embarked upon a series of public pledges as to how it will deliver upon its ambition for environmental sustainability and the promotion of air quality, and measure and report its progress towards these goals.

Having set out on a Net Zero strategy for 2030, less than two months ago, Ricardo has moved quickly in demonstrating how it intends to deliver on this goal.

The first public pledge made by Ricardo is in the area of renewable energy consumption. Ricardo has already increased its use of renewable electricity from 67 percent in its financial year 2017/18 to 74 percent in 2019/20 – an impressive record over such a timespan. The company is today committing to raise this proportion still further – to 90 percent – by the end of 2025.

In other areas of environmental performance delivery, Ricardo is joining industry and government initiatives from which further pledges will emerge. In terms of promoting air quality, Ricardo has joined with seven other major businesses, including Philips, Uber, Engie and BP Chargemaster, together with the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and air pollution campaigners Global Action Plan, to form the Business Clean Air Taskforce (B-CAT). The aim of B-CAT is to help organizations achieve the targets in the Government’s 2019 Clean Air Strategy, not least by setting standards for business action on air pollution.

“There can be no doubt that actions speak louder than words when it comes to corporate environmental commitments,” explains Ricardo CEO Dave Shemmans. “Having set our strategy to achieve an ambitious Net Zero target for our operations by the end of the year 2030, we want to say how we will achieve this as well as helping with other wider environmental targets in areas such as improving air quality. Today, we have started to spell out publicly how we intend to achieve our environmental ambitions in the form of a range of meaningful pledges against which our progress can be measured. Our aim is that Ricardo can be one of the global organizations that leads from the front in setting clear and measurable environmental targets for our own business, while helping our customers and partners to achieve the same.”