GHD does not claim to have all of the answers to address the critical issues associated with a changing planet but we are determined to demonstrate leadership, harness innovation, share a common ethos and foster a sustainable economy that serves society as a whole.

Drawing on the collective will and knowledge of our people, GHD’s sustainability strategy is more than ‘Triple Bottom Line’ reporting and eco-buzzwords. It is a framework to reduce our environmental footprint, while simultaneously increasing the value-adding outputs of our business, enhancing our corporate culture, improving community spirit, and helping our clients to realise their corporate objectives.

For our shareholders it translates to responsible corporate citizenship and wealth creation, and for our people it equates to GHD being a great place to work.

This framework defines how we do business and deliver projects, our commitment to wider supply chains, and our consideration of the long-term consequences of our actions.

GLOBAL AGENDA
GHD recognises the rapidly increasing urgency for society and business to address the global sustainability challenges of climate change, loss of biodiversity, poverty and population growth.

Our response to these challenges is to manage the social, economic and environmental consequences of our projects, provide positive outcomes and avoid serious negative impacts.

We have become a Member of the peak global business organisation for sustainability, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and will contribute enthusiastically to their focus areas of Energy & Climate, Development, the Business Role and Ecosystems.

POLICY
We have recently revised our Sustainability and Environment Policy to reflect our commitments.
“GHD recognises its corporate responsibility to contribute to the goals of sustainable development and is committed to managing the social, economic and environmental impacts of our operations, and assisting our clients to manage theirs in the provision of our professional consulting services. We recognise innovation as the key to realising this aspiration.”

REPORTING
We will support our policy more systematically and in a manner that enables us to measure GHD’s performance and report our strategic direction. In the Performance Indicators section of our Annual Review you can read about how we are managing the sustainability impacts of our operations.

In the coming years we will further develop GHD’s management and reporting framework, articulate new objectives, set targets and report more comprehensively on our achievements.

KEY INTITIATIVES
We are excited about the contribution that GHD can make to a sustainable society and enthused by new initiatives including:

• The establishment of a Sustainability Advisory Group to guide the alignment of our business with the global sustainability agenda and equip our staff with the necessary skills
• Adopting a staged approach towards achieving carbon neutrality with a target date of 2010
• Implementing Sustainability Awareness Training to all our staff
• Incorporating sustainability impact assessments into our project procedures
• Engaging with our clients and their stakeholders to workshop sustainability solutions at events such as OUR PLANET and through an ongoing series of Sustainability Seminars