Climate Change Requires Climate Action
With extreme weather events increasing in frequency and severity in the U.S. and worldwide and consequences of the climate crisis becoming more tangible, governments and businesses alike are increasingly recognizing the social and economic costs of climate inaction and the enormous opportunities the net zero transition and climate adaptation efforts present. To meet this challenge, the current federal administration has prioritized a “whole of government approach” to climate change that requires rapid and effective government-wide response to reduce carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 and establish a net zero federal government and economy by 2050 as well as preparing the nation for the unavoidable impacts of climate change. So, the question now is: How can public sector entities accelerate to zero emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change in a manner that enhances their ability to deliver their missions? For many government leaders, this is a new, complex, and rapidly evolving challenge. The need to act is clear, but the path forward is not.
Deloitte’s Climate Action Background
We partner with governments at all levels to take climate action and build a more sustainable and equitable world by reducing emissions, increasing resilience, and driving inclusive and equitable growth. We look at climate change holistically as mitigation and adaptation can be synergistic for federal, state, and local governments. As a globally recognized consulting firm, Deloitte supports the public sector to design, operationalize, and evaluate comprehensive, cutting-edge climate programs to achieve ambitious climate goals.
Deloitte’s Climate Action Offering
As part of our commitment to climate action and helping our clients achieve mission-focused and equitable climate goals, we provide an integrated and complementary range of climate and sustainability solutions, focused on mitigation, adaptation, equity, and cross-cutting issues. For mitigation services, we provide solutions to help mitigate climate change, decarbonize, and achieve net-zero goals. Additionally, we help clients deploy adaptation strategies, which identify, assess, and manage climate risks, building sustainability and resilience across operations. To ensure equity is addressed, we support clients to put equity at the forefront of climate investment decision – by making and operationalizing Justice40. Finally, we believe many climate issues cut across mitigation, adaptation, and equity and we apply a climate lens to these issues for even greater impact. Our solutions are infused with cutting-edge climate research, enhanced with state-of-the-art accelerators and tools, and based on best practices from decades of climate work in the public and private sectors.
With our new partnership with Colorado University, Boulder, we have launched the Climate Innovation Collaboratory where we will be expanding government’s access to critical climate data science, data analytics and applied research, and to encourage the exchange of public information to help public sector clients deploy innovative climate solutions.
Doing our part: Deloitte’s climate commitments
To help create momentum toward Paris Agreement goals, Deloitte launched WorldClimate, our global strategy to drive responsible climate choices within our organization and beyond. We commit to achieving ambitious science-based targets, including net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by or before 2030 for our own operations and aligning our climate practices and actions across our organization from working to eliminate single use plastics to reducing food waste