Our planet
Becoming a zero
waste business
Eliminating all avoidable waste from
our operations, by 2030.
We’re committed to reducing the environmental impact of our offices by avoiding, and where possible, eliminating the volume of materials wasted. We define zero-waste as designing and managing products and processes to systematically avoid and eliminate the volume of waste and materials, conserve and recover all resources and to not burn or bury them.
Our actions behind the scenes
Since we committed to reduce our consumption of single-use plastics across our estate in 2019, we’ve continued to make progress towards our Zero Waste target, tackling several waste streams and working with our suppliers and colleagues to help us reduce, re-use and recycle. In FY24, we launched an Employee Waste Survey across the UK to gather our employees’ views and feedback on how we facilitate and communicate on waste segregation across our offices. The aim was to understand how we could continue to improve to reduce waste contamination and generation. Based on the feedback received, we implemented the following improvements and continuously review how we can make it easier for colleagues to help us on our Zero Waste journey:
- Re-introducing cardboard and paper into mixed recycling bins across our offices
- Re-introducing recycling for coffee cups because, whilst we no longer use disposables in our offices, there is a need to cater for coffees being brought into KPMG offices
- Ensuring all offices have food waste caddies so food can be composted
- Introducing crisp packet and confectionary wrapper recycling bins into any smaller offices that didn’t previously have these available
- Ensuring bins for all waste streams available are located in the same area on office floors to make it easier for our colleagues to recycle
But that’s not all, we have been working hard behind the scenes to continue to drive our Zero Waste agenda:
- We’ve switched to using crockery and metal cutlery for all food served on site in our offices. With the exception of pre-packaged food items (such as snacks, drinks and pre-made sandwiches), we are now disposable-free in the catering outlets of all offices.This builds on the work we have already done to remove thousands of single use items from our waste streams (plastic straws, stirrers and sauce sachets.
- We’ve worked with our suppliers to identify ways of eliminating waste packaging from entering our offices. For example, we worked with the supplier of our new laptops to minimise the packaging and ensure we could reuse it for the return of the old laptops. Once our laptops are returned, they are refurbished for reuse or are donated to our partner schools across the UK through our community programme.
- We have segregated more of our waste streams to make sure that as much can be recycled as possible. For example, in many offices, we have food waste bins, crisp packet and confectionary recycling and recycling of paper coffee cups brought in from external coffee shops (we only use reusables in our offices). We also have a specific collection for milk cartons in our London office as we have seen the volumes of plant milk consumption increase.
- In collaboration with our supplier, we donate a range of unused office items and equipment to schools and charities.
- Removing disposable cups from our water dispensing machines (and issuing a reusable bottle to all colleagues), eliminating approximately 6 million disposable cups and tonnes of waste.
Paper
Since 2019, we have reduced our paper use by 92%. Our people have played a huge part in helping us to achieve this, and we continue to engage them on good paper reduction habits. We’ve reduced the number of printers across our offices and maintained default settings on colleague computers to print double-sided, to further reduce paper use.
We’ve also switched to other paperless solutions across our office operations – our expenses system is paperless, where possible, our outgoing and incoming mail is paperless and we’re supporting our colleagues to use technology to reduce the need to print.
Food waste
Reducing the amount of food waste across our offices has always been a priority, with our chefs coming up with innovative recipes to use edible food that may have otherwise been thrown away. For example, they use surplus vegetables in cakes, used coffee grounds in brownies and serve ‘zero waste’ dishes in our staff restaurants using ingredients which were due to expire.
A huge amount of perfectly edible food is wasted every year – 6.4 million tonnes in 2018 according to a study by the sustainability charity WRAP1. We’ve teamed up with Waste Knot, an organisation who give farms a route to market for their ‘wonky’ fruit and vegetables. Our catering outlets in our Canada Square office in Canary Wharf have used wonky vegetables that would have otherwise been wasted.
Since August 2021, we’ve been working with Olio, a charity that helps redistribute meals. In that time, over 12,000 meals have been supplied to local families, with over 5000kg of edible food donated. It has proven so successful that we are actively working with our caterer and Olio to identify other opportunities across our various office locations. We also have segregated food waste collections at our Canary Wharf, Watford, Leeds, Manchester and Edinburgh offices.
In June 2024, the firm selected FareShare as its new national charity partner. FareShare is the UK’s largest charity fighting hunger and food waste by redistributing good-to-eat, surplus food to over 8,000 local charities and community organisations. Over the next three years, KPMG UK will work with FareShare to turn surplus food into social change and strengthen communities across the UK.
We’re also converting our waste cooking oil into biodiesel. We’ve also removed all unsustainable palm oil and stopped using any air freighted products in our catering outlets.
1) Food Waste Facts and Statistics - The Eco Expertsopens in a new tab
To reach our waste goal we must review every aspect of how we operate as a business. This includes working with our contractors and suppliers to reduce waste associated with deliveries and continuing to identify new opportunities internally, including how we fit out our offices as well as purchase and dispose of furniture waste. This has led us to collaborate across our offices and develop partnerships with our suppliers and contractors to reduce and recycle wherever possible.
Some innovative solutions to reducing waste include donating items that are no longer needed to charities (or through partners who then donate the items to people who need them). This has included, but not limited to:
- Donating hand basins and mirrors to charities and individuals in need
- Donating carpets to local YMCAs to help them fundraise
- Donating wood flooring to small businesses to assist in their opening and boost footfall
- Redistributing furniture across our estate and, where possible, re-upholstering existing furniture so that it can be re-used
We are also constantly looking at any new furniture we do purchase to ensure that the materials are sustainable, for example:
- We have purchased items that are fully compostable at end of life
- We use suppliers who create furniture out of waste products such as wood, coffee and mixed recycled plastics.
What next?
We’re making good progress, but we continue to look out for new initiatives and ideas to help us to eliminate all avoidable waste from our operations. This includes working with our contractors and suppliers to remove any waste associated with deliveries and exploring how we can adopt successful initiatives across more of our offices.