COP26: our commitment to tackling climate change

Published: Friday 29 Oct 2021

As the world’s leaders gather at COP26 in Glasgow to tackle climate change, we wanted to update you on our own sustainability work.

We’ve published our sustainability strategy with a goal to be net carbon neutral before 2050 in line with the government’s commitment under the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

To achieve our initial short-term objectives, we’ve implemented an action plan with six key areas:

• Partnership and engagement
• Waste management and resource use
• Energy and carbon management
• Sustainable investments
• Travel
• Sustainable procurement

We're also committed to:

• improving our environmental performance through a reduction in our environmental impact
• continuing responsible investments through our environment, social and governance model (ESG) aligned to our sustainability strategy
• improving our social performance as an assessment organisation, through enhancements to the content and delivery of our assessments.

Paul Tucker, AQA’s National HSE and Facilities Manager, said:

“We recognise we have our part to play in tackling global climate change, and we’re also committed to being a socially responsible employer.

“We’ve already achieved some things we’re really proud of, like removing single use plastic water bottles from our meeting rooms, which is an annual reduction of 38,000 bottles based on pre-Covid use; updated our travel policy and switched our buildings to 100% renewable electricity tariffs.

“We’re on track to exceed our commitment to reduce our carbon emissions by 40% by 2025/26. But we won’t stand still, and with the passion and commitment of AQA’s staff we’ll continue to reduce our impact on the environment and cut our carbon footprint.”

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