Editor’s note: This content is sponsored by Accenture and was produced by BrandRap, the sales and marketing arm of Rappler. No member of the news and editorial team participated in the production of this piece. This article was written with Accenture.

When we think of sustainability, we often picture the environment or equate it to green practices.

However, sustainability spans environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues, from transitioning to a zero-carbon economy to human rights to inclusion and diversity. Accenture, together with its partners, is helping to solve these to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. 

Outlining Accenture’s priority SDGs

Following Accenture’s global sustainability agenda, Accenture in the Philippines continues its efforts by operating as a responsible company, client partner, and citizen with the goal of creating value for its people, clients, and the community. 

According to their United Nations Global Compact: Communication on Progress 2021, they have identified eight high and four secondary priority UN Sustainable Development Goals where Accenture operations will have the most impact. With this, Accenture in the Philippines is working on four key focus areas: caring for their people and accelerating equality, caring for communities, readying the path to net-zero by 2025, and practicing technology sustainability. 

Caring for their people and accelerating equality 

Accenture in the Philippines continues to put its people’s safety and health, learning, growth, and well-being as a priority. Strongly committed to inclusion and diversity in its organization, they continue to build diverse teams made up of individuals that are empowered to be their true selves and utilize their different talents in creating innovative solutions. 

They are accelerating gender equality, supporting the LGBT+ community, strengthening disability inclusion and boosting accessibility, and promoting the value of cross-cultural diversity. They do this via bold leadership – where leaders set targets for inclusion and diversity and walk the talk, comprehensive action – wherein policies and practices are put in place to ensure that a culture of equality is consistently exhibited and respected, and empowering environment – where people and communities are encouraged and enabled every time to thrive and succeed.

Caring for the communities

Accenture continues to strengthen communities by making a difference and creating shared success to build a more inclusive and equitable future. Through innovations and partnerships, they aim to help alleviate poverty and hunger, provide livelihood, tech-vocational and entrepreneurial training, upskill individuals and give access to education, help in disaster recovery, and mitigate the COVID-19 impact on the country. 

Examples of the work include:

• As part of the COVID-19 response, Accenture in the Philippines collaborated with partner organizations like Caritas Manila and the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) to aid more than 1 million Filipinos across the Philippines – distributing food vouchers to the poorest families in the National Capital Region (NCR), Laoag, Cebu, and Mindanao, feeding undernourished children for 6 months, extending livelihood training and assistance to individuals living in NCR and provinces in Visayas and Mindanao, and providing training and financial support to selected beneficiaries to start their own businesses and learn entrepreneurship and technical vocational skills.

• Their partnership with the Philippine Business for Education (PBEd) initiated a volunteer-based community teaching program for public school students called The Kiddie Learning Train. The project aimed to help address the learning losses of children in Reading and Math due to the pandemic. Through the program, they have distributed close to 1,000 tablets and school kits to Kinder-Grade 3 students and convened over 130 volunteers to help run these programs.

The pandemic may have shifted a lot of the volunteering initiatives into virtual events, but Accenture’s passionate volunteers showed greater enthusiasm than before to help address societal issues. 

They participated in various digital platforms that either teach one how to code (Hour of Code), create an accessible map of an area that has humanitarian needs (Missing Maps), or participate in real scientific research (Zooniverse) that contributes to a better and more sustainable world.

Its Skills to Succeed Academy helps fellow Filipinos plan and prepare for a successful career journey by equipping them with employability skills that will enable them to be future-ready. 

Supported by Skills to Succeed, their Near-Hire Training (NHT) program aims to develop the right job skills for individuals from poor communities, helping them become competitive and marketable. They have had more than 1,300 beneficiaries in the last five years of which 193 NHT trainees were hired in Accenture in the Philippines.

Their people’s donations also helped the charitable programs that span from helping provide PPEs to frontliners and medical equipment to various hospitals and health centers, providing equipment to selected public schools, supporting Accenture custodians and security personnel, and mobilizing disaster relief packs for calamity-stricken individuals and communities. 

The Path to Net-Zero and Technology Sustainability

Accenture has committed to reaching net-zero carbon emissions by 2025. To do this, they will: 

• Plan to meet their office energy needs with 100% renewable electricity by 2023 and equip their people to make climate-smart travel decisions. 

• Require 90% of their key suppliers* to disclose their environmental targets and actions being taken to reduce emissions by 2025. 

• Address remaining emissions by investing in nature-based carbon removal solutions that will directly remove carbon from the atmosphere.

• Reuse or recycle 100% of their e-waste, such as computers and servers, as well as all their office furniture, by 2025. They are committed to eliminating single-use plastics in their locations.

• Develop plans to reduce the impact of flooding, drought, and water scarcity on their business and their people in high-risk areas. They are also measuring and reducing water use in these locations.

With their years of investment and experience, they have developed a suite of Sustainability Services to help their clients become more sustainable and competitive. 

Accenture has made sustainability one of their greatest responsibilities, and with everyone understanding that every action has an impact, it can be the force of change the world needs right now. 

To learn more about Accenture’s sustainability commitments, head over to the website. – Rappler.com

*Key suppliers are defined as vendors that represent a significant portion of Accenture’s 2019 Scope 3 emissions.