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Case Study
BDO Netherlands: impact through employee-driven carbon offsetting
A CONVERSATION WITH
BDO Netherlands is a leading accountancy and consultancy firm. BDO employs accountants and consultants who understand that value is about more than just money. They take society's profits into account and believe that an annual balance sheet should also include the balance between private life and work. Because only when we take everything into account can we arrive at the true value. Value that adds something to businesses, people, and the world.
Accountacy & Consulting
1935
3,200+
15 offices in the Netherlands
Accountancy, Legal and Tax, Consulting
How can we use carbon offsetting as a lever for broader sustainability goals?
How can we actively involve our employees in the offsetting process to increase support and awareness within the organization?
How can we ensure a mix of projects that have both ecological and socioeconomic impact and are in line with BDO's core values?
Together with Regreener, BDO Netherlands has developed an offset program focused on quality and employee engagement:
Selection of high-quality projects: Regreener carefully selected high-quality CO₂ offset projects. These projects ranged from local initiatives in the Netherlands to international projects with a strong focus on biodiversity, climate adaptation, and socio-economic development. Each project was assessed for quality, impact, and alignment with BDO's sustainability vision.
Employee engagement: To maximize internal engagement, all BDO employees were given the opportunity to learn about the pre-selected projects. The projects were presented through an internal campaign, including detailed information about their impact areas, such as CO₂ reduction, biodiversity restoration, and social benefits for local communities. Employees could then vote for their favorite project. This approach ensured broad support and strengthened the sense of ownership within the organization.
Transparency and communication: Regreener provides BDO Netherlands with communication materials and project updates. This enables BDO to communicate internally and externally transparently about the progress and impact of the selected projects.
Responsibility for unavoidable emissions: Based on Scope 1 and 2 emissions in the base year (2022), NetZero targets have been set and an annual budget has been created to take responsibility for residual emissions while BDO works on CO₂ reduction. This budget is used to contribute to high-quality CO₂ projects, in accordance with the Oxford Offsetting Principles.
Increased employee engagement: By actively involving employees in project selection, awareness of and commitment to sustainability within BDO has increased.
Local and global impact: The selected projects contribute to both local and global sustainability goals, with measurable results in CO₂ reduction, biodiversity, and socio-economic development.
Enhanced reputation: BDO has further strengthened its position as a sustainable and responsible employer and business partner, contributing to a competitive advantage and increasing its attractiveness to clients and talent.
Transparent reporting: with regular updates and communication materials from Regreener, BDO can demonstrably show how its compensation contribution is making an impact.
