A 1901 editorial attributed to Charles Waldo Haskins, a founding father of Deloitte, stated that those who "persist in preferring darkness to light...will soon be compelled to do that which they ought to do voluntarily." Deloitte, after more than a century of choosing the light, has developed a set of shared values and a compelling culture that is fundamental to who we are and what we stand for in the business world and in our local communities.

Over the years, we have become recognized leaders in areas considered essential to being a good corporate citizen—Ethics, Talent, Community Involvement and delivering outstanding value to our clients. During the last year and a half we have formally embarked on a green journey whose success has been dependent, not so much on changing our culture, but rather awakening ourselves to the sustainability imperative. Our goal has been to strategically leverage the energies of our 45,000 people to strive for sustainability in both their professional and personal lives.

Our Approach

Our approach to corporate responsibility and sustainability starts by looking inward to our values and our people. Unlike the world around us, Deloitte's core values have not changed, providing both a compass and the institutional strength which allows us, with confidence and conviction, to go where our responsibilities lead us. As an organization, we take our responsibilities seriously, and we expect our people to do the same.

Because meeting our responsibilities only works when our people make the right choices, our first benchmark for success is the voluntary engagement and participation of everyone within our organization. Internally over the past year, two of our most visible indicators are participation in IMPACT Day and response to our green footprint surveys. In June 2009, 32,000 of our colleagues dedicated a full workday to community service. Thus far over 28,000 have taken the "Office Green Footprint Survey" and more recently over 10,000 have responded to the "Home Green Footprint Survey." Externally, engagement with clients in areas of corporate responsibility and sustainability also shows strong promise as our Enterprise Sustainability group generated growth greater than 50 percent above plan during the past year.

Progress

During fiscal 2009, we have both expanded and integrated CR and sustainability internally as well as made progress in understanding and addressing our broader impacts.

Internally, much of our activity centered on embedding sustainability concepts into our overall CR strategy as well as into the mature components of corporate responsibility. Some of our more notable accomplishments have been the establishment of a Green Leadership Council representing all of the regions of Deloitte, the determination of our carbon footprint baseline and the measurement of our carbon performance for fiscal 2009, and the establishment of LEED design criteria for all new and refurbished office space. Looking ahead we expect to establish carbon reduction targets.

Externally, we are encouraging our people to have a green presence beyond the workplace through our "Home Green Footprint Survey" and many of our Office Toolkit 2.0 projects that are geared toward the community. US leadership on the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu (DTT) CR Council has resulted in adoption of a global CR policy based on the US model. Lastly, we are also examining all of our relationships with suppliers and subcontractors through a CR/sustainability lens.

Through the actions of many

It's been said that a characteristic of Deloitte is "constructive discontent," which might be described as a motivating attitude that no matter how much we have achieved there is always more that can be done. Our feeling of pride in our CR/sustainability accomplishments is accompanied with a growing appreciation of the journey ahead and a humbling recognition that by ourselves we can never achieve a full measure of success.

By applying the breadth and depth of our capabilities to critical issues, we make a meaningful contribution when collaborating with others. It starts with the choices of each individual, multiplied by 45,000 colleagues at Deloitte, and better yet by over 168,000 professionals worldwide within the DTT member firms. Through the actions of many, we seek to bring the full force of our organization to truly magnify our impact.