Top Ten Actions for the Financial & Professional Services Sector

1. Include climate impacts in risk assessment and investment decisions. Divest your company pension funds and assets from fossil fuels.

2. Measure your emissions baseline and set a reduction target using science-based targets.

3. Assess your heating and cooling requirements and identify opportunities to reduce demand. For example, ensure heating and cooling don’t operate at the same time. Improve the fabric energy efficiency of your building through insulation if possible.

4. Reduce the impact of your electricity demand: Switch to a 100% renewable energy supplier or ask your landlord to switch for you. If you are a big energy consumer, consider buying renewable electricity directly from new renewable projects. Reduce electricity demand by purchasing appliances/equipment rated highly for energy efficiency.

5. Calculate your potential emissions reduction from changing behaviours linked to travel. Introduce policies to reach this target, for example reducing air travel, encouraging active travel and virtual meetings.

Top Ten Actions for the Financial & Professional Services Sector

6. Consolidate activities around package deliveries and collections to reduce linked carbon emissions and air pollution. For example, specify times for parcels to be collected rather than allowing individual collections throughout the day.

7. Procure responsibly: Choose products and services with low whole lifecycle climate and ecological impacts. Monitor performance throughout by including climate KPIs in contracts.

8. Focus on employee education to ensure that employees understand new climate action policies and measures. These will not succeed unless employees know how these work. Communicate and train employees around this issue. For example, through webinars, information packs, workshops etc. Help them to manage their finances sustainably too by choosing banks, pensions or ISAs which don’t invest in fossil fuels.

9. Take steps to promote climate action externally. Engage with government to highlight actions that businesses are willing and able to take. Collaborate with other businesses, potentially through your Business Improvement District, for mutual learnings. Support calls for change to systems that don’t value environmental protection.

10. Offset unavoidable carbon emissions using best practice guidance.

Framework for the Financial & Professional Services sector

Related Resources

Resource
LBH Content
Business Climate Guidance Case Study: Greater London Authority (GLA) Group
Going full circular economy at the GLA group.

Resource
LBH Content
Business Climate Guidance Case Study: London Pensions Fund Authority
Divesting London’s pension fund from fossil fuels.

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LBH Content
Professional and Business Services
Advice for professional services about the end of the transition period.