We have a responsibility to conduct our business in a sustainable way and a duty to reduce our environmental impact. Hachette UK’s Sustainability Report sets out and explains our ambitious near-term climate targets for reducing carbon emissions as part of our action to address climate change. Our targets have been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), a corporate climate action organisation that enables companies worldwide to play their part in combating the climate crisis and give us a clear path to reduce three scopes – or types – of greenhouse (GHG) emissions, helping to prevent the worst impacts of climate change.
Read Hachette UK’s 2024 Sustainability Report here.
Our targets at a glance
The three Hachette UK commitments the SBTi has validated are:
- To reduce absolute scope 1 and 2 emissions by 56.8% from 2019 levels by 2030
- To source 100% of our electricity supply from renewable sources by 2030, up from 25% in 2019
- To reduce absolute scope 3 emissions by 27.5% from their 2019 level by 2030
The reduction targets for our operational footprint – Scopes 1 and 2 – are in line with the Paris Agreement, the international treaty on climate change that was adopted in 2015 to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
Our objective to source 100% of our electricity from renewable sources by 2030 will ensure we are on track to be carbon neutral in our own operations.
We are also working collaboratively with key printers, distributors, manufacturers, and other suppliers throughout the supply chain to reduce our Scope 3 emissions by 27.5%.
As part of the Lagardère group, Hachette UK has signed the UN Global Compact, under which companies are asked to uphold core values in the areas of human rights, labour standards, the environment and anti-corruption. Our SBTi-approved targets are aligned with Hachette Livre’s 30/30 Strategy, the name of its 30% carbon reduction by 2030 programme. These are in line with the Lagardère Group’s decarbonization strategy, which is also based on the SBTi (Science Based Targets Initiative) approach.
The three scopes are a way of categorising the different kinds of emissions a company creates in its own operations and in its wider ‘value chain’ (its suppliers and customers). You can read more about the different types of emissions – or scopes – here.