Our commitment to environmental sustainability

We will reach net-zero climate impact by 2030 through decarbonizing our operations, investing in natural climate solutions, and accelerating progress through partnerships.

Climate change is the defining issue of our time, and our aspiration is to help build a more sustainable and inclusive future while working in partnership with others.

McKinsey is committed to achieving net-zero climate impact by 2030, and we have set science-based targets validated by the Science Based Targets initiative in line with a 1.5-degree pathway.

Learn more about our environmental footprint Learn more about our roadmap to net-zero climate impact

Our three key areas of climate action

Decarbonizing our operations | Investing in natural climate solutions
Accelerating progress through partnerships

Decarbonizing our operations

We are committed to achieving net-zero climate impact by 2030. As a critical milestone on that journey, we have set science-based targets that have been validated by the Science Based Targets initiative in line with a 1.5-degree pathway. Achieving these commitments and lowering our firm's carbon footprint requires taking a multi-pronged approach across all scopes.

We are reducing our absolute emissions from vehicles and offices by 25 percent (Scope 1 and 2) mainly through electrifying our firm-owned vehicles, introducing alternative mobility packages, transitioning to 100 percent renewable electricity, and making our global office space more sustainable.

For our Scope 3 GHG emissions (indirect emissions from internal and client travel), we are working towards achieving our validated science-based target of 30 percent per colleague travel reduction by 2025 - mostly through adopting hybrid working models and Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF). As a firm, we can and need to go beyond our official target to meet our 2030 net-zero climate impact commitment.

Since 2018, we have been carbon neutral by compensating for all emissions that we have not yet been able to eliminate.

Learn more about our carbon footprint (PDF)

95%

renewable electricity in 2020

Target 100% by 2025

18%

reduction of absolute Scope 1 & 2 emissions in 2020 vs. 2019

Target 25% by 2025

74%

reduction in Scope 3 GHG emissions from internal and client-travel per colleague in 2020 vs. 2019

Target 30% by 2025

100%

of our GHG emissions offset since 2018

Electrifying firm-owned vehicles

Reducing travel and encouraging hybrid working models

Making our global office spaces sustainable

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Across more than 100 of our offices, Green Teams led by over 1,000 passionate colleagues are driving environmental initiatives to reduce our footprint and build awareness about environmental sustainability. For example, our Green Teams in Brazil have implemented initiatives for more sustainable and efficient water-management systems in their offices, and the Amsterdam Green Team’s “AMO Goes Green” initiative has significantly reduced the office’s footprint, serving as a model for our other offices around the world.

Investing in natural climate solutions

Decarbonizing global business alone will not be enough for the world to reach a 1.5-degree pathway.

The world faces converging environmental crises that are inextricably linked and compounding: climate change and the accelerating destruction of our natural ecosystems. To address these dual crises, we invest in natural climate solutions (NCS). We focus on NCS – in particular, forest protection and reforestation – both to compensate for our remaining emissions and to help remove carbon from the atmosphere.

In 2021, we helped launch the NCS Investment Accelerator, led by the NCS Alliance and co-convened by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), the World Economic Forum (WEF), and other leading private-sector partners whose objective is to increase private-sector investment in natural climate solutions.

Our climate impact projects

Since 2017, we have been supporting multiyear NCS projects around the world, certified to the highest standards, in areas such as forest protection, reforestation, wastewater treatment, borehole rehabilitation, landfill gas capture, and domestic biogas. Explore nine of them below.

Accelerating progress through partnerships

Partnering with others is key to scaling the solutions we collectively need. We work with our clients, peer organizations, nonprofits, and other partners to support a transition to net-zero emissions, help scale high-impact environmental efforts with nonprofits through pro bono support, as well as embedding sustainability into our processes, encouraging our key suppliers to make their operations more sustainable.

We partner in multiyear projects to support and scale ambitious conservation initiatives that help protect nature and reduce the loss of biodiversity.

Blue Nature Alliance

We work with the Blue Nature Alliance, a global partnership that collaborates with governments, NGOs, Indigenous peoples, and scientists with an ambitious goal to catalyze the conservation of about five percent of the world’s ocean, over five years. McKinsey provides pro bono support to Blue Nature Alliance and has helped develop financial models and planning to better understand the possible outcomes of different marine-protection scenarios for large-scale areas in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Visit Blue Nature Alliance

LEAF Coalition

We are proud to be one of the first participants in the LEAF Coalition, one of the largest-ever public-private efforts to protect tropical forests. Together with signatory governments and leading private-sector companies, LEAF has made significant headway on its innovative, scalable approach to large-scale financing of tropical-forest protection, addressing both supply and demand, including safeguards that give agency to Indigenous people and local communities.

Visit LEAF Coalition

Delterra

Rethinking Recycling is the flagship initiative of Delterra, an independent environmental nonprofit incubated by McKinsey that builds rapidly scalable, self-sustaining recycling ecosystems in emerging economies to help communities redirect waste into productive use. To help address these challenges, McKinsey provides financial and in-kind support.

Learn more

Creating impact with our clients and suppliers

McKinsey Sustainability

We are working with clients to lead a wave of innovation and economic growth that safeguards our planet and advances sustainability. By leveraging our thought leadership, innovative tools and solutions, and top talent, we help clients accelerate the transition to a net-zero economy. For the past three years, we have supported more than 1,700 projects with over 600 clients across 70 countries.