Skip to main content Skip to footer
Back

SUSTAINABILITY

We believe every business must be a sustainable business

We help our clients advance their environmental, social and governance goals by connecting sustainability to their transformations; operate our business with a strong commitment to the environment, ethics and human rights; and work to create value in communities around the world.

100%

renewable electricity across our offices, achieving our goal

82%

of our key suppliers* have disclosed emissions targets

4.3M

people equipped with skills toward employment or entrepreneurship

*Key suppliers are defined as vendors are represent a significant portion of our 2019 Scope 3 emissions.

Community impact

Creating value in communities around the world—from developing skills to supporting refugees—is core to our belief in shared success.

Skills to Succeed

Our Skills to Succeed initiative is about supporting and empowering people as they prepare for and navigate their career journeys.

Programs supported by Skills to Succeed reported that approximately 4.3 million people worldwide were equipped with skills toward employment or entrepreneurship.

Skills to Succeed Academy is a free, immersive online learning program to help young people build skills and confidence to succeed in the workplace.

The Academy skilled ~80,000 people globally, in collaboration with our partners

Preparing for employment

Global Opportunity Youth Network

In August 2023, we committed to invest $4.5 million over 41 months in support of the Aspen Institute’s Global Opportunity Youth Network. This program provides young people in Brazil, Colombia, India, Mexico and South Africa increased access to productive and dignified employment opportunities and skills to help them thrive at work.

JA Worldwide

We helped JA (Junior Achievement) Worldwide skill more than 1.8 million young people across 18 countries, helping students gain the skills, experience and confidence to prepare for future job or entrepreneurship opportunities. Our support enabled JA to enhance the content and functionality of learning experiences and platforms that support youth, teachers, parents and allies around the world.

UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited Passport to Earning

We collaborate with Microsoft and other partners on UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited Passport to Earning (P2E) platform to help break down barriers to learning, such as lack of access to relevant skills and opportunities. Accenture's financial and in-kind contributions in collaboration with other partners are expected to help P2E equip millions of underserved youth in India and Brazil with future-relevant digital and employability skills over the coming years. As of October 2023, more than a million young people have been skilled in and received certifications for financial literacy and digital productivity.

Goodwill Clean Tech Accelerator

In October 2023, we announced a partnership with Goodwill Industries International to create the Goodwill Clean Tech Accelerator. Targeting under- and unemployed individuals in the United States, the accelerator will teach employability and technical skills for a range of in-demand roles in the energy sector, including solar and storage, electric vehicle charging, heat pumps and energy efficiency.

Supporting entrepreneurs

Youth Business International - Green and social entrepreneurship

As a partner to YBI, we support and skill young entrepreneurs from disadvantaged backgrounds as they start, grow and sustain businesses—helping to unlock income streams, job creation and inclusive economic growth. Accenture worked with YBI to fund the development of a Green & Social Entrepreneurship Toolkit which brings together 18 tools for startups and existing businesses with a social or environmental purpose.

Sky's the Limit

Sky’s the Limit helps aspiring entrepreneurs chase their business dreams by connecting them with volunteer mentors. We matched ~400 entrepreneurs with Accenture mentors.

Building work experience

Internships

In the United States, our Skills to Succeed internship and Learning to Lead programs provide early career exposure and work experience to high school and college-aged individuals through summer and year-round internships. This year, ~850 high school and post-high school interns participated.

Sustainability Education & Action

To help empower and inspire young people to address critical issues, we have created an action-oriented community impact program to equip them with the mindsets, skills and tools to build a more sustainable future.

Sustainability Innovation Challenge

Through partnerships with UNICEF Generation Unlimited's imaGen Ventures and JA Worldwide, the challenge invites teams to address some of the world's most critical environmental and social issues. This initiative reached approximately 28,000 young innovators across 12 countries in fiscal 2023.​

Sustainability Hour

We are collaborating with World’s Largest Lesson (an initiative of Project Everyone) to create Sustainability Hour. Available in more than 30 languages, this new volunteering offering enables our people—and employees of other organizations—to host interactive hour-long sessions using design thinking to inspire children to become change-makers for the Global Goals (UN SDGs).

Innovating for our communities

We leverage existing and emerging technologies to address critical challenges facing society and the environment.

Huippula

This service, developed by Accenture and Save the Children Finland, teaches digital safety to children through engaging stories, questionnaires, tests and data analytics for teachers to track understanding and progress.

Casa Zero

This nonprofit in Brazil seeks to unite entrepreneurship, culture and education for social impact, offering libraries, studios and coworking spaces. We collaborated on a digital literacy skilling project and launched a Social Innovation Center that showcases emerging technologies and offers immersive and collaborative experiences to young people.

Communities in crisis and refugees
 

Humanitarian Aid in Israel and Gaza

As a company, we have donated $1.5 million to Magen David Adom and $1.5 million to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, for a total of $3 million for humanitarian relief. In addition, we are matching 100% of our people’s donations to selected charitable organizations providing relief in Israel and Gaza.

Supporting refugees

We are helping welcome refugees in the communities where we work and live, and we recognize how they enrich our communities through their courage, strength and talent.

Welcome.US

Accenture is partnering with Welcome.US to help lead the movement of mobilizing private sector and community support for refugee resettlement and welcoming newcomers in the United States.

  • Our Chair and CEO, Julie Sweet co-chairs the Welcome.US CEO Council along with Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. A network of 38 CEOs, the Welcome.US CEO Council works to accelerate and scale private sector support for people seeking refuge to meet immediate needs for resettlement including housing and home goods, job and training opportunities, and accessible legal assistance for newcomers.
  • To date, the group has contributed more than $179 million in pro bono, in-kind and financial support.

Refugee Talent Hub

Founded by our people in the Netherlands, Refugee Talent Hub empowers refugees to grow their network, advance skills and find employment. The Refugee Talent Hub skilled approximately 900 refugees in fiscal 2023, which led to more than 290 employment opportunities.

Ukrainian Refugees

We are continuing to help to meet the medium- and longer-term needs of Ukrainian refugees and internally displaced people, including learning, skills development and transition into employment.

  • As a member of the Tent Partnership for Refugees, Accenture is supporting hiring and skilling of refugees, including Ukrainian refugee women, across Europe. In fiscal 2023, we committed to partner with organizations to help skill and support an estimated 16,000 refugee job seekers and migrants—and to hire 100 refugees—in Europe over the next three years.
  • We are helping Upwardly Global to support the economic resilience of 1,000 displaced Ukrainian refugees with job coaching, job readiness, language and technical skills training. Over the course of the program, Upwardly Global will empower local partners to help place Ukrainian refugees into skill-aligned jobs.

Purpose and participation

We offer many ways for our people to act for social and environmental impact, including a wide range of local and global volunteering opportunities.

Global volunteering

Our global volunteering efforts enable our people to make a difference at scale—often working virtually alongside colleagues from around the world.

Mapping for International Women’s Day

In March 2023, ~1,000 volunteers in 33 countries contributed 1,300+ hours to mapping areas of rural Tanzania where girls often walk long distances to school.

Every Name Counts

We continue to support the Arolsen Archives’ Every Name Counts initiative to accelerate the indexing of the world’s largest archives dedicated to the victims of Nazi persecution. Over the course of a 24-hour event on Holocaust Remembrance Day in January 2023, ~700 volunteers from 31 countries contributed to the Every Name Counts project, using an AI-based tool we developed to accelerate archive indexing.

Local volunteering

We also recognize that our people want to respond to needs in their local communities and support them in providing opportunities to create a positive impact.

Mentoring by Accenture people

Our volunteers around the world share their skills, knowledge and experience with others.

For example, we are participating in the Japanese Women's Leadership Initiative to help women students from 20 universities in Japan prepare for leadership roles in a global environment through overseas internships. Nearly 80 Accenture women volunteered with the program as trainers, instructors and mentors.

Eco Action

Eco Action initiative

Our commitment to environmental stewardship includes our ongoing Eco Action initiative, which encourages our people to nurture their passion for environmental sustainability and act for impact at home, at work and in their communities.

186,000+

of our people participated in Eco Action.

Measuring personal impact

We offer personal environmental footprint tools to help our people measure their impact. In doing so, we are contributing to the Count Us In movement, which activates citizens to take action against climate change.

Our people as innovators

Innovation is at the heart of how we serve our clients, and how we engage our people on sustainability issues. More than 5,000 of our people participated in our Social Innovators initiative, which includes:

Sustainability Innovation Challenge

Our annual Sustainability Innovation Challenge engaged more than 4,400 Accenture people, who produced almost 900 ideas on the key themes of Nature & Biodiversity, Sustainable Systems & Industries, and Equity & Human Wellbeing.

We engaged Accenture clients including Marriott, Microsoft, Walgreens, L'Oréal, National Grid Plc and AXA XL, together with 32 innovation partners including nonprofit, environmental and health-focused social enterprises.

Social Innovators Accelerator

With two open calls to our people to apply, the Social Innovators Accelerator provides funding and coaching for projects that are novel and have the potential to deliver clear social and environmental impact. 45 projects received funding to progress innovative projects with a positive environmental or social objective.

Social innovation learning

Our social innovation learning activities skilled ~550 of our people. We also launched the Social Innovation Leadership Immersion program for Accenture leadership.

Corporate giving

A bar chart showing Accenture's contributions across four categories: cash, in-kind (including development partnerships and pro bono consulting), time (paid volunteering), and Accenture Foundations contributions. Notably, in-kind contributions represent the largest portion for each year. The chart suggests a trend of increasing contributions, particularly in in-kind support.
A bar chart showing Accenture's contributions across four categories: cash, in-kind (including development partnerships and pro bono consulting), time (paid volunteering), and Accenture Foundations contributions. Notably, in-kind contributions represent the largest portion for each year. The chart suggests a trend of increasing contributions, particularly in in-kind support.
A table titled "Accenture Contribution by Type" displaying the breakdown of Accenture's contributions in US dollars (in thousands) for the years 2023, 2022, and 2021. Contributions are categorized as Cash, In-Kind, Time, Total Accenture Contributions, Accenture Foundation Contributions, and Total Accenture and Accenture Foundation Contributions.
A table titled "Accenture Contribution by Type" displaying the breakdown of Accenture's contributions in US dollars (in thousands) for the years 2023, 2022, and 2021. Contributions are categorized as Cash, In-Kind, Time, Total Accenture Contributions, Accenture Foundation Contributions, and Total Accenture and Accenture Foundation Contributions.

$150,103 (in thousands)

  • Total Accenture and Accenture Foundations Contributions in fiscal 2023
A table showing Accenture contributions by region for 2021, 2022, and 2023 in thousands of US dollars.
A table showing Accenture contributions by region for 2021, 2022, and 2023 in thousands of US dollars.

The information provided on this site reflects our goals, progress and performance across our global operations during fiscal 2023 
(ended August 31, 2023), unless otherwise noted.