RWS Annual Report 2022 web - Flipbook - Page 57
METRICS AND TARGETS
Our short- and long-term climate-related risks include:
•
•
Transitional risks which mainly relate to potential policy
and regulatory changes that are considered ‘high’ in
terms of significance and likelihood over the longer
term. For example, policy development could trigger
new green business taxes to fund the initiatives. There
is also the potential issue that if legislation is rolled
out in haste it could result in long-term unintended
consequences which will need to be redressed.
Physical risks are low in the short term and ‘lowto-medium’ in the longer term for significance and
likelihood. Changes in temperature, for instance, could
impact energy demand for heating and cooling, while
extreme weather conditions could cause flooding,
rising sea levels and fires. Both risks could adversely
affect revenue. With a global footprint of over 70 offices
in 33 countries there is a varying degree of risk in
different geographic locations which are monitored in
conjunction with our business continuity programmes.
RWS has identified significant opportunities in sectors
which are the most vulnerable as they often have the
biggest opportunity, such as the move to renewables in
oil and gas, the move to electric cars in the automotive
industry, new technology, life sciences contingency
planning, increased litigation in the legal market, and so on.
Currently we assess our carbon emissions against
revenue and full-time equivalent employees and have
targeted year-on-year reductions for: natural resources
and consumables, carbon footprint, electricity, waste and
environmental incidents as well as reported our results in
the annual CDP disclosures.
We are in the process of developing our carbon net zero
metrics and aim to report these at the end of FY23.
We monitor and report our global Scope 1, 2 and 3
emissions for all our offices (see pages 28 to 29) and we are
looking to strengthen existing targets to help our business
be carbon net zero by 2050 using FY22 as a baseline year
(see page 28). These goals are aligned to the Paris Accord
which is a global agreement to keep temperature rise well
below 2°C above preindustrial levels, and pursue efforts to
limit the increase to 1.5°C. Delivering our targets is in part
dependent on having a policy and regulatory environment
that supports our carbon net zero objectives. We continue
to adopt positive policies to reduce carbon emissions and
increase transparency and flexibility (see pages 28 to 29
for more detail). RWS is not utilising carbon management
schemes such as emissions trading schemes however RWS
has invested a number of small carbon offsetting projects
which are linked to our SDGs.
c. Describe how processes for identifying,
assessing, and managing climate-related
risks are integrated into the organisation’s
overall risk management
The CEO has overall responsibility for climate change
management. The CFO and Head of Sustainability and
ESG supports the CEO by managing the risk potential
impact register and by engaging the Executive Team
on climate change related issues. The Executive Team
meets periodically to discuss climate change issues
and determine appropriate mitigation strategies. Risks
for direct operations, upstream and downstream, are
determined through consultation with each of the
Divisional Presidents and the Chief Information Officer
(CIO), and the Head of Sustainability and ESG. Risks are
categorised according to the likelihood of occurrence
versus the severity of the potential impact on the group.
For example, the hazard risk of climate change and
natural disasters ranks ‘medium’ for both criteria, and
so this is considered to be a principal risk. The Board
monitors principal risks routinely.
STRATEGIC REPORT RWS — Annual Report 2022
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