Celebrating Earth Day 2021: Creating a more connected, sustainable world

This Earth Day marks a year to the day since we launched our Climate Action Plan. The plan captured the shared passion, pride and drive of #OurJacobs family as we work to preserve our planet for future generations.

We committed to 100% renewable energy for our operations in 2020, net zero carbon for our operations and business travel in 2020, and carbon negative for our operations and business travel by 2030 in our Climate Action Plan. By the end of the year, we’d fulfilled the commitments we set out to achieve in 2020 – but we didn’t stop there.

We developed science-based carbon-reduction targets for our direct and indirect emissions, that were approved by the Science-Based Targets Initiative, and joined the World Economic Forum — Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders. And, we became a founding member of the United Nations Global Compact’s Chief Financial Officer Taskforce for the Sustainable Development Goals to help reshape the future of corporate finance and investment as a catalyst for growth, value creation and social impact.

In the U.K., we’ve become involved with Business in the Community’s net zero carbon taskforce, influencing how the country will move towards becoming a net zero economy. And recently we signed a public letter organized by We Mean Business and Ceres calling on the ambitious and deliverable target of cutting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% below 2005 levels by 2030.

The way we operate our business is also enabling us to better support our clients to integrate sustainable, low-carbon solutions into their own operations – helping projects of all sizes, at every step of the project lifecycle, identify, implement and track solutions to build a better, more sustainable tomorrow.

Celebrating Earth Day 2021

Earth Day is an annual event celebrated around the world to demonstrate support for environmental protection. And with our purpose at Jacobs of creating a more connected, sustainable world, you’d be right in thinking that we have some celebrations planned to mark the occasion.

With a global network of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) ambassadors and many parents, uncles, aunts and other types of carers in our midst, we saw an opportunity to spark meaningful conversations about the climate crisis with the leaders of tomorrow. Sometimes it can be difficult articulating the momentous challenge we face with climate change to children and young people, but for an individual to take action against climate change they first have to understand it.

To help, we’ve developed the Climate Change Conversation Starter – a free, downloadable pack of STEAM activities that equips grown-ups with the tools they need to start that all important conversation around climate change with children. And as STEAM education benefits everyone, we’ve made it available not only to our employees, but to the public as well. Why not take a peek and kick-start your own climate change conversation?

As we countdown to COP26 in November this year, our employees are also making a difference through the Climate Countdown Challenge – a year-long initiative run through our global giving and volunteering platform, Collectively^SM. Each month has a different theme with new activities, ranging from adopting food habits that lower emissions, to saving water, to changing heating and cooling habits. To mark Earth Day and have some fun reviving an older item of clothing or accessory, we’re offering iron-on t-shirt transfers on our company store to #OurJacobs teammates who sign up to participate in the challenge by the end of April 2021.

And that’s not all our employees are doing to celebrate.

Our global Latino Employee Network Enlace (Spanish for “link”) is hosting a social hour for members to discuss this year’s Earth Day theme Restoring our Earth. They have also launched activities on our Collectively platform to engage co-workers around this theme.

Speaking of Collectively – until the end of April, Jacobs is matching employee donations by 100% to 164 charities around the world fighting to save our planet from climate change and environmental destruction, when they donate through our giving and volunteering platform. We’re excited to see how #OurJacobs co-workers pool together to support causes around the world!

It seems fitting that Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders’ Earthrise image helped to inspire the first Earth Day back in 1970 – as our environmental team at Kennedy Space Center has a whole month of festivities this April for staff to participate in and have a positive impact on the planet (our planet, that is!). From watching movies about the environment to learning about shoreline dune restoration and even how to make your own cleaning products, there’s something for everyone in the team’s jam-packed events calendar.

We know that business plays a vital role in helping to achieve the transition to the net zero carbon economy and are proud to be part of the global movement of leading companies taking climate action in our operations, working with our clients and partners to help in the fight against climate change.