We do things right
We always act with integrity — taking responsibility for our work, caring for our people and staying focused on safety and sustainability. We make investments in our clients, people and communities, so we can grow together.
Tackling the climate challenge
Climate change is perhaps the greatest challenge and opportunity of our generation. How we collectively respond to the global climate crisis will be foundational to building a healthier, safer, more equitable and sustainable future for all people and our planet.
Detailed in our Carbon Neutrality Commitment, we became carbon neutral for our operations and business travel in 2020, and we are now focused on fulfilling our science-based carbon-reduction targets for our direct and indirect emissions. In FY21, we launched Jacobs PlanBeyond℠ 2.0 — our enhanced sustainable business approach that propels the integration of sustainability throughout our operations and client solutions in alignment with the UN SDGs.
Reporting our third-party verified FY20 CO2 emissions, we saw a 33% reduction in total, calculated carbon emissions (Scope 1, Scope 2 location-based and a portion of Scope 3) to 124,163 tCO2e, as well as a 50% reduction in our travel-related carbon emissions — both from an updated FY19 baseline. Our FY20 net carbon emissions were zero for Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 business travel, after the application of renewable energy certificates and high-quality carbon offsets. Third party verified data for FY21 will be issued in FY22.
Our ESG Disclosures Report shares our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) performance, reported in alignment with the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board framework, in addition to other ESG information material to our business and of interest to key stakeholders. In FY21, we earned a place on the prestigious Dow Jones Sustainability™ North America Index, which represents the top 20% of the largest 600 North American companies in the S&P Global Broad Market Index. We also achieved industry-leading ISS Prime Status for our ESG Corporate Rating.
Supporting the global drive to net zero and action on climate change, Jacobs became a Global Strategic Partner for the World Climate Forum, spearheaded by the World Climate Foundation (WCF). We shared insight at WCF summits in Europe, North America and Asia, and at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), as well as supporting the United Nations’ Race to Zero campaign and the Business Ambition for 1.5°C commitment.
To proactively implement resiliency strategies for future climate change scenarios, we developed Climate Risk Manager to inform our inaugural climate risk and opportunities assessment — published in our Climate Risk Assessment FY21 (aligned with the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures framework) — and to help our clients understand theirs. Read more about how we are helping to build a healthier, safer, more sustainable and resilient future for all.
Challenging today: FY21 further achievements
Welcomed 1,900+ graduates, interns, co-ops and apprentices to our global team in FY21; making a total of ~3,500 early career talent currently working with us.
All vice presidents acknowledged and made a commitment to become BeyondZero Ambassadors and establish priorities to deliver the greatest impact through our BeyondZero strategy.
Accelerated talent development in creating sustainable solutions through our participation in the UN Global Compact Young SDG Innovators program.
Enhanced our Operational Security Strategic Risk Analysis reporting system to provide clear consistent evaluation of risk for informed decision-making processes, protecting our people and business.
Completed over 14,000 One Million Lives check-ins between December 2020 launch and our fiscal year end 2021.
Trained more than 2,500 Positive Mental Health Champions — one in every 21 employees, and a 35% increase over FY20 — to support the mental wellbeing of our employees.
Launched Suicide Awareness Training through our e3 Learning.
Received Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) Patron’s Award for health and safety achievement, recognizing our 27th consecutive RoSPA Gold Health and Safety Award.
Expanded our Executive Leadership Program, developed by Jacobs in partnership with Duke Corporate Education, with 226 of our next level leaders participating in our Amplif(i)3 Program.
Recognized by the Chartered Quality Institute International Quality Awards as its 2020 Quality Organization of the Year for large companies.
Recognized 26 teams and individuals in our 2021 BeyondExcellence Annual Awards.
Initiated a Climate Countdown Challenge to help equip employees with measurable personal actions to fight climate change.
Honored by six business achievement awards by Environmental Business International.
Developed a Social Value Solutions framework that helps clients create social value and contribute to a more inclusive economy.
Added 20 new students to our 12-year Joseph Jacobs scholarship program and renewed the scholarship to 46 students, granting a total of $196,000 in FY21.
Supporting the best and brightest minds
Our people took the time to share honest, unfiltered feedback in our confidential culture survey. The results were overwhelmingly positive, with the majority of respondents feeling connected to our values, inspired by our culture of integrity, safety, and inclusion — and proud to be part of Jacobs. We shared six priority areas, along with a set of dynamic dashboards, enabling all employees to see survey data relevant to them.
Our unique employee experience platform — e3: engage. excel. elevate. — is not just a system but a mindset for developing our employees through continuous feedback and celebrations, aligning priorities, learning new skills, and upskilling knowledge. In FY21, we launched 1,696 new courses across 10 learning spaces, including our new Advocate & Ally development program. In partnership with the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, we launched the Climate Solutions Accelerator online course to employees to help them understand the role they can play in climate change action and continue to develop the critical green skills and solutions needed for our continually evolving world.
Creating a safer, secure and healthier future
As global challenges to our security, wellbeing and ability to operate evolve, we stay focused on managing HSE and security risks effectively and leveraging our Culture of Caring℠ to deliver the best outcomes for our people, the environment and our company. Our new BeyondZero® strategy continues to drive a safer, more secure, healthier, and more resilient future and we are maturing our business continuity program to assure business delivery and resilience in an ever-changing operational environment. We also continue to demonstrate safety excellence with another year of zero employee fatalities at work and a total recordable incident rate1 of 0.21, compared to the North American Industry Classification System’s most recently reported2 aggregate rate of 0.70.
Our new global wellbeing strategy integrates physical, mental, financial, social and workplace wellbeing for Jacobs employees and their families. The strategy includes Jacobs’ One Million Lives, developed in collaboration with global mental health professionals, to provide a free mental health check-in tool with a resources website that enable users to check their own mental health and access proactive strategies for personal mental health development.
1 As at October 15, 2021 and recorded in accordance with OSHA record keeping requirements, but subject to change thereafter due to possible injury/illness classification changes.
2 Cited on October 5th, 2021 via U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics - Incidence rates of nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses by industry and case types, 2019 for NAICS code 5413XXX
STEAM at Jacobs
The Butterfly Effect provides pupils with the knowledge and understanding they need to put sustainability at the heart of every decision they make.
PlanBeyond 2.0
Integrating sustainability throughout our operations and client solutions in alignment with the UN SDGs.
Collectively making the world a better place
At Jacobs, we focus on putting our values into practice. Around the world, our people support a strong culture of partnership and cross-collaboration, helping to raise awareness and integrate sustainability and science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) education into their activities to make a positive difference in our local communities — and develop the talent force of the future in our industry. Recognizing the challenging times for many of our future talent, our STEAM Ambassador network delivered virtual learning experiences to support our partner schools and the parents and students of Jacobs. We launched Jacobs-funded time for STEAM activities and our employees tracked more than 3,000 STEAM hours (between January-September 2021), on- and off-company time.
Shaping tomorrow: FY22 actions
Continue to build a learning culture that activates innovation, inclusion and diversity, and sustainability.
Create a sustainability upskilling training program, as part of our series of upskilling and reskilling pilot programs.
Launch our global STEAM strategy, with new Climate Change Education Program focused on education on UN SDGs.
Initiate sustainable building design for Jacobs’ flagship innovation laboratory in Warrington, U.K.
Refresh our global Supplier Code of Conduct to ensure our suppliers align to our values.
We also introduced the next phase of our global giving and volunteering platform, Collectively℠. Employees can claim four hours of paid STEAM volunteering a year; request company donations for charities that are aligned with Jacobs’ values and strategic causes; and, through an open matching program, Jacobs instantly matches employee donations year-round to two million global charities. Our people rallied together to support devastating events such as Hurricane Ida, the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the COVID-19 surge across India, the Haiti earthquake, and many more. Our annual Water for People campaign raised more than $300,000 in corporate and employee funds to create local water and sanitation utilities around the globe, bringing total donations to more than $4 million over the last three decades.
In FY21, we donated $3.4 million to 3,300+ charities across 36 countries. Our people tracked approximately 19,000 volunteer hours and completed 15,500+ activities — collectively adding up to make the world a better place.
0.21
total recordable incident rate1
BeyondZero to 2025 and Beyond
BeyondZero is the foundation of our company's culture of caring and a core part of our values and who we are at Jacobs.
33%
reduction in total, calculated carbon emissions
Carbon neutral & 100% renewable energy
2020 and 2019 Carbon emissions in tonnes
Amount of renewable electricity purchased by region in 2020
Scope 1 emissions are carbon emissions that a company directly creates at the source. For example, exhaust from vehicles or combustion of natural gas in a boiler for heating a building.
Scope 2 emissions are emissions that are indirectly caused by the energy consumption of a company, but which are emitted from equipment or sources controlled by other parties.
Scope 3 emissions are the indirect emissions that come from all the other activities a company engages in and are often referred to as emissions from the supply chain.
Footnote: We are in process of externally verifying our FY21 emissions and will be including that data in our FY21 ESG Disclosures Report available soon.