Reducing our carbon footprint

Climate change is a driver of poverty, inequality, and affects human rights. Women and girls are among those leading efforts to tackle climate change – but they are also among the hardest hit.

ActionAid UK acknowledges that our own operations, especially the use of renewable and non-renewable resources, the use of goods and services, and our international and domestic travel, directly and indirectly, impact the environment.

We are therefore committed to being an environmentally-responsible organisation and to becoming sustainable in our operations.

Given we know first hand the devastating effect climate change has on the women and girls we support, we can't stand aside from playing our part in reducing our own carbon footprint.

We are committing to making future choices based on strong sustainability – for example, when we next look for office space, environmental considerations will be a strong driver for our choice of space.

Download our environmental policy

ActionAid UK is committed to achieving Net Zero emissions by 2040.

To achieve this, we will be aiming to reduce emissions in line with the latest science-based targets (SBTs).

SBTs are greenhouse gas reduction goals set by organisations.

They are defined as “science-based” when they align with the scale of reductions required to limit global temperature increases to 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial temperatures.

SBTs provide organisations with pathways to sustainable transformational change to accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy.

For us, this means that we will need to reduce our absolute carbon emissions by at least 90% from our baseline year, or achieve (and maintain) a carbon intensity metric of <1 tonne CO2e per employee, whichever comes soonest. You can view our latest carbon footprint measurement.

To keep ourselves on track with these long-term targets, we have set certain near-term goals we are working towards and recorded these in our Carbon Reduction Plan.

Our carbon reduction plan

ActionAid UK is committed to achieving Net Zero emissions by 2040.

To achieve this, we will be aiming to reduce emissions in line with the latest science-based targets (SBTs).

SBTs are greenhouse gas reduction goals set by organisations.

They are defined as “science-based” when they align with the scale of reductions required to limit global temperature increases to 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial temperatures.

SBTs provide organisations with pathways to sustainable transformational change to accelerate the transition to a low carbon economy.

For us, this means that we will need to reduce our absolute carbon emissions by at least 90% from our baseline year, or achieve (and maintain) a carbon intensity metric of <1 tonne CO2e per employee, whichever comes soonest. You can view our latest carbon footprint measurement.

To keep ourselves on track with these long-term targets, we have set certain near-term goals we are working towards and recorded these in our carbon reduction plan.

Download our carbon reduction plan

Our 'do-no-harm' tools

At ActionAid we have been working on preparedness, climate change adaptation, agroecology, and disaster risk reduction for years.

We have developed tools and risk assessments to ensure we are not harming the environment through our work programmes, by including considerations around environmentally-friendly procurement, transport and partnerships options in our project design process.

Green Champions Network

ActionAid UK is part of an ActionAid Federation-wide Green Champions Network.

To date, the Network has focused on advocating for and promoting sustainable practices across the organisation and raising awareness among staff on the environmental crisis.

The network also holds ActionAid to account for its objectives on minimising the environmental impact of the Federation.

Climate and Environmental Charter for Humanitarian Organisations

ActionAid UK, as part of ActionAid International, is a signatory of the Climate Charter.

This means that we have signed up to the seven commitments as laid out in the Charter to reduce the impacts of climate and environmental crises together with other local, national and international humanitarian organisations.

Find a full list of the signatories and details of the seven commitments.