Our challenges
The challenges of this time are clear: climate change, global biodiversity decline, focus on sustainable business and a healthy soil-water ecosystem in both the public and private sectors require long term changes. As TAUW, we take our responsibility by shaping a vital living environment prioritising sustainability.
Today’s challenges
In 2028 we will celebrate our 100th anniversary. Along the way, we will continue to adapt to current and future challenges. Only then we can be a Leading European Environmental Consultancy company that offers our own, strong impactful answer to the challenges of today and tomorrow.
In 2021 TAUW faced some major developments. Not only are they challenging, but they also offer opportunities that we must and will embrace.
- First, the uncertainties caused by the impact of the ongoing corona pandemic have not disappeared. They have come in waves. Relaxations of restrictions followed by tightening of restrictions and vice versa. There is uncertainty surrounding economic growth, investments and necessary savings. This has consequences for both our order book and our personal lives. So far, we are more than able to cope with the uncertainties. The number of projects is still growing, clients are increasingly returning, employees are satisfied in their work and we have embraced the new way of working at our office and the ones of our clients. The future will show what remote working will ultimately look like and what the influence of further digital developments will be in this area.
- There is a raising awareness of climate change, biodiversity, sustainable business and a healthy soil-water ecosystem in both the public and private sectors. Alarming conclusions from the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow (COP26), the World Economic Forum and international regulations such as the Green Deal, point towards a shifting societal understanding that the most pressing global risks are environmental ones. These changes also translate to increasing demands from our clients. At the same time, we see that technological developments, and more specifically digital and data-driven developments, are impacting our environmental services in an unprecedented way. We consider these developments as key in today’s challenge and tomorrow’s solution, and therefore use and embrace them in our daily work.
- We are seeing a competitive labour market for environmental professionals. There is a structurally increasing demand for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) professionals. In this heated labour market, the ability to recruit, retain and develop talent is key to our success. New (generations of) employees require an open, informal, purpose-driven and safe working environment. They highly value personal freedom and prefer (and are good at) working in ‘networks’ instead of traditional (hierarchical) structures.
These challenges require changes in the way we work, act and think. To become the strong Leading European Environmental Consultancy company that we would like to be, we cannot stand still. To increase our impact as a company we will continue to develop and change. Because we know that the challenges we face seamlessly fits with our core values Care, Connect and Improve!
Sustainability is our business
TAUW’s work is focused on contributing to a vital living environment by creating tangible and feasible sustainable solutions. That is our daily work and our living ambition.
We work on sustainability at TAUW based on our intrinsic motivation to make the world a little better than today. That is the most important driver in the choices we make. The level of urgency and client journeys around sustainability form the basis for the future development of TAUW. To better connect to customer needs and practice what we preach, we started our Sustainability Program. Through this program, we stimulate international collaboration while unifying knowledge and experience from various workgroups with colleagues from across the organisation.
Because sustainability is a broad concept, we translate the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations into TAUW-language, guiding our professional choices and attaching objectives to them. To be able to define the sustainability objectives concretely, we adhere to the five pillars of sustainability: People, Planet, Prosperity, Partnerships and Peace.
In this Living Ambition Report we illustrate how we give substance to specific sustainability pillars and SDGs. In the next chapters we will provide examples of our impact on different working fields; in our projects, our operation and with our partnerships and professionals.
Contributing to the SDG’s
At TAUW we are passionate about helping our customers make sustainability impact through the projects that we engage in. To be the force for good that we aspire to be we believe that focusing our knowledge and experience will serve our customers best. We have embarked on a journey to explore on which sustainability development goals (SDG’s) to concentrate our efforts for the years to come. Staying close to our long and rich history, these will be connected to improving our common living environment.
Likewise, we are truly committed about making our organisation and our operations more sustainable. Following our core values of Care, Connect and Improve we believe in a working environment in which people from a diverse background can flourish and dedicate their knowledge, creativity and passion to work that matters. And it comes naturally to ensure that our operations make little impact on our living environment. Sharing the values and principles of our employees and our customers we strive to achieve net zero carbon impact in our operations, and in that spirit we have initiated several activities to reduce our carbon footprint.
In the following chapters we provide examples of our day to day work to illustrate our impact and ambitions.