Michael Herron

Michael Herron

Senior Vice President, Central Government

Ongoing conversations around climate change are getting louder as the climate crisis becomes increasingly pressing. We only have one planet and the business community is beginning to adjust its ways of working to ensure practices are the best and most sustainable in recognition of this. Now is the time for authoritative voices to steer the conversation, lead by example and operate purposefully.

At CGI, we’ve started our journey to become as green as possible and we recognise this will be an ongoing process. But it’s not only our corporate activities that we are looking to improve. Our employees, or members as we refer to them, are also keen to play their part in helping us, and themselves to make and drive change for the better. As a result we have implemented a member-driven ‘No Planet B’ initiative within our business, where our members are empowered to take action and have a positive effect on the future of our planet.

Aligned to our carbon reduction roadmap, ‘No Planet B’ engages members on our journey to reduce their environmental impact and to facilitate their contribution towards meeting our environmental objectives. Our volunteer ‘No Planet B’ ambassadors have achieved a great deal already, including eliminating the use of single use plastics from office kitchen environments; implementing cycling ambassadors in all UK offices to promote our cycling initiatives; arranging local litter picks; organising and promoting environmental competitions, webinars, articles and events and encouraging recycling, reusing and reducing through waste management initatives. We also regularly encourage and support our members to consider their personal activities and lifestyle, and the impact this can have on the planet, such as exercise, diet and eating habits.

Alongside this, we have planted 10,000 trees across the UK. 5,500 were planted in the Scottish borders as part of a reforestation initiative, and 4,500 were planted by member nominated community groups across the UK, including schools, scout groups and refuges. Also, watch this space for forthcoming news of our activities with Project Seagrass.

World Environment Day is a great example of our members coming together to think about the big picture and to restore our ecosystems, kickstarting the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030). The CGI Clean Up is where members are encouraged to take part in a week long litter pick with their friends, families and community groups. For every bag collected and photo shared on our No Planet B Teams channel this year, we will be donating £5 to the Wildlife Trust. We are also encouraging our members to take part in a range of climate positive activities throughout the week, from webinars to member videos.

We’re proud to be leading the way with our climate-conscious activities and we will continue to spearhead initiatives that ensure the actions we take now are as impactful as possible. And for CGI it’s definitely an ‘and’ game. That is, getting to net zero itself will not be enough. We must not just reduce the greenhouse gases we put in the atmosphere but also invest in seagrass and trees as examples in order to take carbon out of the atmosphere and lock it up. COP26 is going to be a great opportunity to share insights that will lead to a brighter future and our appointment to the COP26 Business Leaders Group to champion climate action is a real acknowledgement of our commitment.

We are passionate about encouraging everyone to protect our planet, because, as we all know, there’s no Planet B.

About this author

Michael Herron

Michael Herron

Senior Vice President, Central Government

Michael leads the Central Government business unit for CGI in the UK. His vision is for CGI to be recognised by UK Government as a world class end-to-end IT and business consulting services provider, helping them to succeed in delivering their ambition and strategy of ...