Hays : ClimatePartner to accompany international recruitment expert Hays on its sustainability journey

The cooperation draws on ClimatePartner´s comprehensive expertise in supporting international service companies and auditing carbon emissions data

ClimatePartner is excited to announce its new partnership with Hays plc, helping to advise and support on their sustainability journey. Hays - the world's largest specialist recruiter, with a presence in 33 countries - will become a carbon neutral company by the end of 2021 and is committed to becoming a Net Zero company as a second step. As part of its journey, Hays is calculating the carbon footprint of all 257 of its offices worldwide, including relevant scope 3 emissions.

ClimatePartner will audit Hays' CO2 emissions, encompassing its scope 1, scope 2, and relevant parts of scope 3 data - this includes energy usage at company facilities, business travel, employee commuting, external data centres and more. The resulting carbon footprint report will allow Hays to identify possible reduction or avoidance opportunities to be taken into consideration in addition to its existing strategies to reduce its emissions. Those emissions that cannot yet be reduced or avoided are offset through one of our certified carbon offset projects, an afforestation project in Guanare, Uruguay, where degraded grassland is transformed into healthy forest.

By becoming carbon neutral this year, Hays is taking a brilliant step on its sustainability journey and making significant progress on its route to Net Zero.

Hays has created an internal Global Net Zero Working Group, consisting of senior directors from each Hays region, tasked to permanently reduce the company's GHG emissions. This Group has already identified numerous new policies, including:

• Sourcing office electricity from renewable sources. Many of Hays' countries have moved to renewables, including their largest markets of Germany, UK & Ireland and Australia. Hays is committed to using only renewable electricity, where there is an available market solution, by 2022.
• Embedding video and virtual meetings in its workflows to materially - and permanently - reduce all forms of travel.
• Targeting a 40% reduction in Group flights, versus pre-pandemic levels, by 2025.
• Increasing the proportion of hybrid and electric vehicles in their fleet, and ensuring all new entry-level cars are not internal combustion engine vehicles.

Emilien Hoet, Head of ClimatePartner UK: 'We are delighted to be supporting Hays on its sustainability journey and it is very exciting to see such dedication in taking bold climate action. We hope this announcement and the initiatives that underpin it will inspire others in the industry to do the same, following Hays' market-leading example.'

David Phillips, Head of ESG at Hays: 'We have had a tremendous response to our Net Zero commitment from our colleagues, clients and other stakeholders. We are determined to de-carbonise our operations and deliver sustainable long-term growth. We selected ClimatePartner based on their passion, deep environmental knowledge and our shared values and look forward to working together'.

-ends-

Hays
Jonathan Beasley
Global Communications Manager
[e-mail]

ClimatePartner
Dieter Niewierra
Communications
[phone]
[e-mail]

About Hays

Hays plc (the 'Group') is a leading global professional recruiting group. The Group is the expert at recruiting qualified, professional and skilled people worldwide, being the market leader in the UK and Australia and one of the market leaders in Continental Europe, Latin America and Asia. The Group operates across the private and public sectors, dealing in permanent positions, contract roles and temporary assignments. As at 31 December 2020 the Group employed c.10,000 staff operating from 257 offices in 33 countries across 20 specialisms. For the year ended 30 June 2020:

- the Group reported net fees of £996.2 million and operating profit (pre-exceptional items) of £135.0 million;
- the Group placed around 66,000 candidates into permanent jobs and around 235,000 people into temporary roles;
- 17% of Group net fees were generated in Australia & New Zealand, 26% in Germany, 23% in United Kingdom & Ireland and 34% in Rest of World (RoW);
- the temporary placement business represented 59% of net fees and the permanent placement business represented 41% of net fees;
- IT is the Group's largest specialism, with 25% of net fees, while Accountancy & Finance (15%) and Construction & Property (12%), are the next largest
- Hays operates in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UAE, the UK and the USA

About ClimatePartner

ClimatePartner is a pioneer and innovation leader in solutions for corporate climate action. We combine individual consulting with cloud-based software that is unique on the market. We help our customers calculate and reduce carbon emissions and offset unavoidable emissions. This renders products and companies carbon neutral, which is confirmed by our label. We offer carbon offset projects in different regions and with different technologies and standards. The additional social benefits of the projects are particularly important to us. Our efforts are geared towards the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. ClimatePartner was founded in Munich in 2006. Today, our more than 200 employees are spread across offices in Munich, Berlin, Essen, London, The Hague, Vienna, Milan and Zurich. We work with more than 3,000 companies in 35 countries. More information: www.climatepartner.com