Engineering, procurement, consulting and construction company updates next era of responsive sustainability progress and targets while guiding clients to lower carbon, water footprints
Global critical human infrastructure leader Black & Veatch today released its 2024 corporate sustainability report, detailing the employee-owned company’s rigorous progress in achieving its key sustainability milestones and commitments while guiding clients toward lower carbon and water footprints, and heightened resilience.
Viewing sustainability as a critical business imperative rather than merely a corporate responsibility, the company lays out its efforts to improve environmental and social impacts through three interdependent areas – corporate initiatives, client engagements and community involvement.
The comprehensive, transparent report – Black & Veatch’s fourth – highlights the company’s sustainability successes and the challenges tackled, including meeting its goals to achieve a 40 percent decline in Scope 1 and 2 emissions and a 20 percent decline in overall greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Scope 1, 2 and Scope 3, business travel), from a 2019 baseline through absolute reductions, renewable energy use and renewable energy certificates (RECs).
Recognizing the need for ambitious yet practicable actions to impact the environment, the company has expanded its net-zero emissions goals and is committing to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across Scopes 1 and 2 as well as Scope 3 by 2050 in alignment with the Paris Agreement. To support achieving the company’s new sustainability goals, it also has increased its sustainability capabilities by investing in new tools, data and processes to enable tracking of progress and decision making.
Additionally, recognized industry sustainability expert Deepa Poduval has been appointed the company’s dedicated global sustainability leader and a member of the leadership team, elevating the company’s critical commitment to leveraging sustainability across its operations and decision-making.
“As the world’s challenges become increasingly complex, we must think bigger and be bolder. Push ourselves. Place big bets,” Black & Veatch Chairman and CEO Mario Azar said. “With that in mind, we’ve significantly restructured our operating model to be more client-centric and more responsive to the future needs of the energy transition, including decarbonization, resilience and sustainability of critical infrastructure.”
“We track and report the progress of our sustainability strategies to ensure transparency, drive accountability, foster trust among stakeholders and upgrade our business decision-making,” said Poduval, senior vice president and global sustainability leader for Black & Veatch. “Building out our talented team of professionals, innovating with a disruptive portfolio of engineering and construction solutions and the enduring capacity to operate resiliently for many decades ahead is how we will deliver on our new vision to be the leader in sustainable infrastructure – an outlook this report explains in greater detail.”
Some other highlights from the report include:
The company met the interim sustainability targets for 2023 that were established in 2020. Black & Veatch’s Scope 1 and 2 emissions declined by 43 percent while its overall measured GHG emissions decreased by 31 percent.
Key drivers included reductions in air travel emissions (down 40 percent from 2019 to 2023) and a 70 percent drop in market-based emissions from electricity usage through optimization of real estate, the purchase of renewable power and renewable energy certificates.
IgniteX – Black & Veatch’s award-winning accelerator, recognized by a Department of Energy EPIC prize – empowered a cohort of seven startups specializing in areas such as AI technology, carbon capture and reduction, and sustainable nutrition to help scale-up innovative solutions to critical human infrastructure.
Black & Veatch continued to advance its commitment to civic engagement and philanthropic efforts focused on communities, STEM and sustainability, with emphasis on underserved and historically marginalized populations. The company’s charitable efforts include sponsorship of programs that combat human trafficking, a form of modern-day slavery and Operation Breakthrough, a child and family development center in Kansas City, Missouri.
The company contributed roughly $1.5 million in matching gifts in 2023 in hardship fund support and grants, and the Black & Veatch Foundation surpassed $29 million in total giving to the United Way and exceeded $5 million in support for Children’s Mercy Kansas City.
Editor’s Notes:
The full Black & Veatch 2024 Sustainability Report is available to download here.
About Black & Veatch
Black & Veatch is a 100-percent employee-owned global engineering, procurement, consulting and construction company with a more than 100-year track record of innovation in sustainable infrastructure. Since 1915, we have helped our clients improve the lives of people around the world by addressing the resilience and reliability of our most important infrastructure assets. Follow us on www.bv.com and on LinkedIn, Facebook, X (Twitter) and Instagram.
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