Tetra Tech’s 2024 Sustainability Report, released on Earth Day, highlights progress on our environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals and our commitment to improving the lives of 1 billion people by 2030.
Sustainability is an integral part of Tetra Tech’s business, embedded in our daily practices, and extending throughout our projects. For nearly 60 years, we have leveraged cutting-edge expertise and the latest technology to provide more sustainable solutions to clients and continually improve the way we do business.
Through our Sustainability Program, we monitor ESG metrics and report annually on the global impact of our projects and our priorities for human and social capital, professional development, health and safety, and ethics. Our program and associated goals align with our ongoing commitment to the United Nations (UN) Global Compact, UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and Science Based Targets Initiative.
In 2023 we continued to enhance the sustainability of our daily practices, reduce our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and provide an exceptional working environment for our employees.
Improving lives through our 1 Billion People Challenge
Tetra Tech’s greatest impact on the world is through the more than 100,000 projects our scientists, engineers, and technical specialists perform each year. We measure the impact of our work on the lives of people around the world through our 1 Billion People Challenge, assessing and reporting annually on the associated benefits to people through five key metrics that align with the UN SDGs.
We reached an additional 79.9 million people through our projects in 2023, advancing to a total of 625 million lives improved since the challenge was launched. The additional project progress for 2023 against our five metrics were:
- 4.16 trillion gallons of water treated, saved, or reused
- 120,804 megawatts of renewable energy generated or transmitted
- 5.7 million hectares of land and water ecosystems protected, managed, or restored
- 52.2 million metric tons of CO₂e avoided or captured
- 336,787 people benefited from social and governance programs
Reducing our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
As part of our action on climate change, we have a strong emissions management program that has been reporting our emissions reductions since 2010. Our ambitious, science-based targets are consistent with the global 1.5-degree Celsius target of the Paris Agreement and have been independently assessed and verified by the Science Based Targets Initiative. In 2023 we made our initial CDP disclosure to enhance the transparency of our GHG reporting and provide a benchmark for future progress on emissions reduction.
We continued to work towards our GHG emissions reduction goals. While our business grew significantly through acquisition in 2023, we decreased our emissions per employee (Scope 1 and 2) by 6.9 percent, from the updated 2021 baseline. We again expanded our Scope 3 data sets in 2023, with the inclusion of commuting data, and took several actions that had a beneficial impact on our GHG emissions in the reporting year and for future years.
These include further reducing our office footprint to 121 square feet per employee, improving on our 2030 goal of less than 150 square feet per employee, and continuing to leverage technology solutions to provide high connectivity, flexibility, cybersecurity, and improve information technology efficiencies.
Promoting employee development and inclusion
Our people are the foundation for a successful and sustainable business. We are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive culture where our employees can thrive and achieve their full potential. We continued to make progress toward workforce gender balance, racial and ethnic diversity, employee engagement, and professional development goals.
During the year 36 percent of employees participated in Tetra Tech-sponsored professional development training, which support continued innovation and excellent service for our clients. We increased employee engagement in our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Program activities and grew membership in our Employee Resource Groups (ERG) by 10 percent. We also extended employee engagement surveys to cover 100 percent of operations.
Our DEI program was recognized with two awards during the year. We received the Environmental Business Journal (EBJ) Diversity & Inclusion Award for our work to support, engage, and advance staff at all levels of the firm through our DEI Council and ERGs, and The National Safety Council selected Tetra Tech for the People DEI Safety Champion Award. We were recognized for successfully reducing injury rates by nearly 60 percent since 2018 and using our global ERGs to inform and discuss safety topics most important to our frontline workers.
Maintaining the highest levels of corporate governance
Tetra Tech is committed to maintaining the highest levels of ethical conduct, honesty, and integrity in our business practices. In 2023 our independent auditors conducted an end-to-end review of our Ethics and Compliance Program. This was supplementary to the annual audit of our confidential and independent whistleblower and grievance process and required Corporate Code of Conduct training for directors, officers, and employees.
Advancing towards our sustainability goals
We continue to work toward achieving our ESG goals and reducing our GHG emissions to support global efforts to achieve the Paris Agreement’s 1.5-degree Celsius target. We are committed to improving the lives of people around the world and using our Leading with Science® approach to produce scalable solutions that will help mitigate the effects of climate change and contribute to a better world.
Explore Tetra Tech’s latest 1 Billion People Challenge metrics and our progress toward our ESG goals.