As the largest pure-play sustainability consultancy, we partner with the world’s leading organizations, creating innovative solutions to sustainability challenges and unlocking commercial opportunities that meet the needs of today while preserving opportunity for future generations.

Our clients are at the center of everything we do – whether building business resilience, supporting their transition to a low-carbon future, or enabling progress on environmental, social and governance (ESG) priorities.

Our diverse team of world-class experts supports clients across the breadth of their organizations to operationalize sustainability, underpinned by our deep technical expertise in addressing their environmental, health, safety, risk and social issues. We call this capability our “boots to boardroom” approach for its comprehensive service model that allows ERM to develop strategic and technical solutions that advance objectives on the ground or at the executive level.

Together with the world’s leading organizations, we are shaping a more sustainable future.

Clients all over the world call on ERM to help them respond to complex sustainability ambitions like building business resilience, supporting the transition to a low-carbon future, or enabling progress on ESG priorities.

Our singular focus on sustainability, our range of services, and “boots to boardroom” approach ensure that we can work alongside our clients to address their most pressing challenges and opportunities, whether they require focused technical attention or full top-to-bottom strategy and solutions.

ERM has more than fifty years of experience operationalizing sustainability for clients. Our breadth and depth of expertise and ability to integrate solutions across organizations are why many of the world’s leading organizations partner with us as their trusted advisors.

ERM is shaping a sustainable future with the world’s leading organizations.

Our purpose is the driving force behind the way ERM shows up for clients and society. “Shaping” means we are actively influencing, collaborating and co-creating; ‘a sustainable future” has been defined through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). And “with the world’s leading organizations” inspires collaboration with our clients and society’s most prominent changemakers alike in order to make a difference through our work.

In pursuit of our purpose, we draw on more than 50 years of environmental, health, safety, risk and social experience of partnering with our clients to define goals and translate them into action. Sustainability pioneers with a reputation for excellence since 1971, we continue to strive today to make a positive difference for our clients, for society, and for the planet.

We continue to innovate and invest to ensure we have up to date capabilities and the broadest set of skills to support our clients’ needs and deepen our impact at any level of their business. At the same time, ERM values remain constant – accountability, client focus, collaboration, empowerment, care for our people and transparency.

Our organizational structure is built around our Partnership model. Our Partners – trusted advisors to leading organizations across the globe – mobilize our team of experts across 40 countries in our continuous effort to remain the leader in sustainability consulting.

ERM’s sustainability program is an overarching framework that supports our long-term business strategy and drives continual improvement. Our Sustainability Policy and Sustainability Approach articulate our commitments to sustainability. ERM’s comprehensive approach to sustainability is embedded in our corporate strategy with a stated purpose: to shape a sustainable future with the world’s leading organizations.

ERM has the opportunity and responsibility to leverage our technical expertise, societal understanding and business acumen to shape a more sustainable world. We have been delivering on our purpose for 50 years.

Our singular focus on sustainability, our range of services and our boots-to-boardroom approach ensure that we can work alongside our clients to address their most pressing challenges and opportunities, whether they require focused technical attention or full top-to-bottom strategy and solutions.

We support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges, and we undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility and encourage the development of environmentally responsible technologies and products.

ERM maintains a global Environmental Management System (EMS) that meets the requirements of ISO14001. The scope of our global EMS covers the activities and operations that occur within ERM offices and in field locations where we have a role or stake in health, safety and environmental (HSE) management. In particular, the system manages concerns stemming from ERM’s core consulting services and operation of multiple offices in various locations, as well as the dynamic requirements for the wide variety of projects conducted for our clients. In some Business Units, ERM has obtained third-party certification for the EMS.

Decarbonization

Decarbonization is an economic, environmental and social necessity. ERM is responding to this driver of change by evolving how we respond to client needs, run our own business and collaborate with other organizations. We have set a number of targets that reflect our focus on these elements of decarbonization. Learn more our commitments and efforts to reduce our direct and indirect impacts on climate change

Our most significant contribution in helping combat climate change is through our work with clients, including with some of the most carbon-intensive industries, as they transition to a lower-carbon future. ERM’s approach is centered on developing an understanding of the risks and opportunities that climate change poses to a business and developing pragmatic programs to manage and mitigate those risks and respond to the opportunities. Developing and executing a plan that not only manages risk but also identifies the new business opportunities created by decarbonization requires a unique combination of strategy, business acumen, and deep energy, climate, environmental and social policy expertise. Through our guidance, businesses are making a shift in their policies, products and performance not least because corporate climate action is becoming a precondition for financial investment.

Nature and biodiversity

The quality of life on Earth depends on thriving, diverse and complex ecological systems. As a growing body of evidence and global initiatives highlight the seriousness of nature and biodiversity decline, it is essential for companies to implement measures to help reverse this trend and become nature positive.

ERM is committed to doing our part to halt and reverse nature loss. ERM announced an important new set of commitments on biodiversity with act4nature international. These public commitments will drive action across our work with clients, our own operations, employee engagement, and external engagements, including the ERM Foundation. In addition, we have set a longer-term goal to achieve nature-positive status by the end of FY26.

ERM joined over 60 companies worldwide, representing a total asset of $1.4 trillion dollars, as new signatories to the Sustainable Oceans Principles. An initiative of the UN Global Compact, this set of core principles provides a framework for a healthy and productive ocean. Since adopting the principles, ERM has been working to integrate the requirements into our processes, recognizing the urgency and global importance of healthy, sustainable oceans.

Clients engage ERM to understand the nature-related impacts, risks and dependencies of their operations, including their supply chains and products; develop strategies and solutions to minimize adverse impacts and maximize opportunities to benefit nature; inform key decisions to ensure compliance with relevant standards; and provide strategic advice regarding project development.

The United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in September 2015, designed to end poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and tackle climate change by 2030.

Reaching these 17 goals will take everyone’s contribution – including government, civil society and business. ERM has been involved with the SDGs since the start of their development in 2012.

We contribute to the SDGs in three ways:

Through our work for clients. We use the SDGs to help our clients develop and implement their strategy for contributing to sustainable development. To meet growing client demand, we are strengthening our capabilities in this area through teams. We also conduct research and publish insights that are of interest to our clients.

In our operations. ERM strives to operate sustainably in support of the SDGs. We have adopted several policies and programs that directly contribute to them, as do our sustainability targets and goals. Of particular note, we have adopted ambitious net-zero and science-based targets for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In addition, the ERM Foundation is committed to making a measurable contribution to the SDGs, and we have identified 10 intersecting SDGs where the Foundation can have the greatest impact.

In collaboration with others. Through our partnerships with leading organizations, we are committed to making a meaningful contribution to the SDGs. ERM participates in SDG panels at leading conferences and convenes SDG workshops and webinars with companies across geographies and sectors sharing our own experiences of contributing to the SDGs.

ERM believes that delivering the pace and scale of change that is needed requires meaningful engagement with all stakeholders – businesses collaborating with governments, customers, suppliers, consumers and wider society. We have an important role to play in these coalitions of change by sharing our expertise and experience of how to deliver climate action, protect nature and ensure sustainable livelihoods for all.

Our global footprint and extensive experience give us a deep appreciation of the complex sustainability challenges facing our clients and society. We recognize the importance of collaborating with other leading organizations and stakeholders to address these challenges.

Thought leadership

The SustainAbility Institute by ERM is our primary platform for strategic sustainability thought leadership. The Institute’s outputs are complemented by operationally focused insights from across the ERM Group. We focus on the topics of greatest interest to our existing clients and provide practical and thought-provoking material for those newer to sustainability.

Collaboration

We collaborate with organizations such as the WBCSD, PRI, Ceres, The Capitals Coalition, the Campbell Institute and others to address planetary and societal challenges through actively contributing to their work programs and advocacy on key societal issues. We support our partners through publishing thought leadership, playing an active role in professional associations and delivering hundreds of presentations at conferences, on webinars and in workshops around the world.

The ERM Foundation

We encourage our employees to actively participate in environmental and social initiatives and actions to help address the needs of their local communities and others around the world.

For more than 25 years, we have collaborated with partners through the ERM Foundation to make positive socioeconomic and environmental impact. The ERM Foundation enables ERM and its employees to provide funding and professional support for nonprofit organizations and social enterprises that share our commitment to creating a more sustainable and equitable world.

As the largest pure-play sustainability consultancy globally, it is imperative that we “walk the talk.” Our corporate commitments include:

• Publishing an important new set of commitments on biodiversity with Act4Nature International, driving action across our work with clients, our own operations, employee engagement, and external engagements – including the ERM Foundation.
• Pledging to drive growth in the demand for, and supply of, hydrogen in a new initiative known as H2Zero, created to help accelerate the use and production of hydrogen as an essential part of the future net-zero energy system.
• Setting ambitious science-based targets to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as part of a unified private sector response to the global risks of climate change. Validated by the Science Based Targets initiative, this makes us an early adopter among the professional services sector.
• Achieving net-zero carbon emissions across our operations by 2025
• Disclosing our climate-related risks and opportunities since 2019, following the recommendations of the Task Force for Climate-related Financial (TCFD).
• Adopting early the revised Universal Standards of the Global Reporting Initiative through our Sustainability Report 2022. We are proud to be a Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards Pioneer.
• Reporting to the GRI standard through our annual Sustainability Report
• Meeting the 10 principles of the UN Global Compact, and through it a signatory to the Women’s Empowerment Principles and the Sustainable Oceans Principles
• Respecting human rights and a world free of slavery. We recognize our responsibility to support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights, as defined by the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. We have a Human Rights, Modern Slavery and Child Labor Policy and report annually in compliance with the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015.
• Committing to workplace equality,we are a signatory to the Race at Work Charter driven by Business in the Community
• Contributing 1% of prior year profits to support sustainability initiatives around the globe via, the ERM Foundation and other organizations.

At ERM we know that creating a diverse and inclusive work environment is not only an essential part of making our company a great place to build a career. Our diversity is a strength that helps us create better solutions for our clients.

Only when we reflect the communities in which we work, celebrate and promote difference and diversity of thought, and assume our collective responsibility towards inclusion, do we realize our full potential as an organization.

We confirmed our commitment to this over 10 years ago in the first global company policy on diversity and, through our active approach to building an inclusive culture, we strive to create an environment where every person can bring their full self to their work. Inclusion relates directly to our company values in the following ways:

• Accountability - knowing that everyone is responsible for building an inclusive culture, as individuals and together;
• Caring for our people - creating a supportive environment to work in;
• Client focus - recognizing the value that we can bring to clients through a diverse employee base;
• Collaboration - encouraging a workforce that works across borders, cultures and diverse backgrounds;
• Empowerment - giving everyone the space to be who they are and realize their full potential;
• Transparency - being open as a culture and eliminating non-inclusive behaviour, including giving a voice to all employees.

A global perspective

At ERM, we have a global Advisory Group that guides the development and implementation of our inclusion strategy across the business. It provides insight and assists us in creating awareness, education and, where appropriate, training across the company. It is open to all employees and we run an annual application process to replace members who have served their two-year term.

Building an inclusive culture – an ongoing journey

We have introduced training to raise awareness of some of the business-related issues associated with not having a diverse and inclusive culture. All employees take part in an online module, which is the start of learning more about this area. We also have more in-depth training for managers and the senior leaders in ERM. We have Employee Resource Groups to provide networks to like-minded communities of our people. We also work across internal functions to make sure our systems and processes are free from bias and promote equal opportunity.