Earth Day 2023: Reflecting on investing in our planet

With Earth Day coming up on April 22nd, it’s the perfect time to reflect on how we can leverage our resources to help build a sustainable future and create a positive impact on our planet. This year’s Earth Day theme is “Invest in Our Planet,” which serves as a reminder that, like most of the important things we rely on, we should not take our planet’s resources for granted.  

As a company that supports millions of people in their day-to-day lives on behalf of our clients, we know we have a significant responsibility to society to promote sustainability. I am so proud of our associates for all the initiatives they accomplished this past year to reduce waste and manage resources more efficiently. With our annual Corporate Social Responsibility Report expected to be published in early June, I’m excited to provide a preview of Conduent’s ongoing progress. 

Committed to reducing our environmental footprint:      

• On pace to meet our goal to reduce Scope 2 emissions by 40% by 2030  
• Responsibly recycled or disposed of 43,264 pieces of e-waste in 2022 
• Decommissioned 9,351 servers from use last year    
• Reduced our real estate footprint by over 50% since 2017  
• Recycled more than 85M pounds of paper since 2017 

Beyond just this list, there are many ways our solutions help reduce environmental impact for our clients, such as for transportation. Congestion pricing, as one example, can be a valuable method for improving environmental impact, addressing common issues such as urban congestion, vehicle miles traveled and stop-and-go traffic. Another example is electronic tolling where Conduent worked in partnership with a U.S. tolling agency to convert 150 miles of turnpike to cashless systems, replacing 12 large toll plaza facilities into free-flow gantries that helped eliminate stop-and-go congestion for travelers and commuters.  

I’d also like to thank our associates for their amazing work in their local communities and workplaces, such as our team in the Philippines providing reusable, metal utensils to over 5,000 associates – eliminating plastic from their lunch and break areas. Or, our team in India, organizing a water reclamation program for 500 students in primary and secondary schools. Or, the hundreds of volunteer hours our teams devoted to beach cleanups throughout the year as part of several international coastal cleanup events around the world, like Jamaica. You can read more about the India team’s story here and more about the Philippines team and beach cleanups in upcoming blogs.   

Again, I’m so proud of the Conduent team for embracing strong environmental, social, and governance standards that demonstrate our commitment to doing business sustainably each day. Earth Day serves as an excellent opportunity to reflect on all the ways we can create a sustainable future, as a company and as individuals, to invest in our planet for generations to come.