Sustainability is a core focus across Computershare, and we have worked actively towards managing and reducing our long-term impact on the environment for many years.
We also continue to develop a range of services that assist our clients in achieving their own sustainability objectives.
We’ve disclosed our environmental impact data and practices through the not-for-profit organisation CDP every year since 2010. In 2022, we improved our CDP Climate Change score from a “C” rating to a “B” rating. See our current CDP scorecard.
In 2023, Computershare also signed-up to the UN Global Compact.
Our Net Zero journey and plan
We’re aiming to attain Net Zero status, as defined by SBTi (Science-Based Targets initiative), by 2042.
Computershare has established a Net Zero Steering Committee and specific working groups focused on our hot-spot areas (which generate the most carbon emissions). We have also created a five-year decarbonisation plan to address these hot-spot areas and further support our Net Zero program.
Hot-spot areas of Computershare’s first five-year decarbonisation plan and carbon emissions reduction targets:
Purchased goods and services
18% reduction target
Paper and logistics
19% reduction target
Business travel and employee commuting
17% reduction target
Capital goods
50% reduction target
Our carbon footprint
Computershare has partnered with an external adviser to support the development of our Net Zero program and the annual calculation of our carbon footprint.
We first calculated our global carbon footprint (for the 2020 calendar year) with our external adviser in 2021. Since then, we have continued to refine how we measure our carbon footprint to align with best practice standards.
Our carbon footprint data and processes are outlined annually in our ESG Report.
To set a Net Zero target, companies are required to define a “baseline year” to compare their progress against. We set our original baseline year as 2020 and filled the remaining data gaps for 2020 using 2021 data as an educated proxy. Our baseline year has since been recalculated using CY20 for Scopes 1 and 2 and CY21 for Scope 3. This enables us to compare our annual carbon emissions while working towards Net Zero.
Since 2021 we have purchased Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) to account for 100% of electricity purchased by Computershare. This has significantly reduced our Scope 2 emissions associated with purchased electricity, and we continue to explore renewable energy solutions for our offices to reduce the need for RECs in the future.
We also support climate projects “beyond our value chain”, helping us to achieve and maintain carbon neutral status since 2020 through our external partner’s certification.
Helping to reduce the carbon footprint of our clients
For many years, we have developed technology to digitise and streamline processes for our clients and their customers. This has helped both us and our clients work towards our environmental goals and has often had the additional benefit of reducing costs.
Below are some examples of the work we have undertaken:
The benefits of our new Employee Share Plan platform
In recent years our Employee Share Plans business has rolled out EquatePlus, a modern and intuitive market-leading platform that allows our clients to oversee their Employee Share Plan simply and effectively. EquatePlus also allows employees to easily understand and manage their participation in a plan, either on the web or using a mobile app. The platform has been successfully rolled out in Europe and Australia and we have commenced roll out in North America.
The deployment of this platform has allowed us to significantly improve the uptake of digital channels for plan-related communications and in turn has significantly reduced the amount of paper communications sent to plan participants.
For example, in the UK, we previously produced approximately 4 million paper communications annually to Plans participants, the majority of which are now sent as digital PDF documents instead. We expect to see similar improvements in Australia in FY24 now that clients have been upgraded to the platform, and in North America after the rollout of the platform is complete.
Promoting digital customer communications
Our Computershare Communication Services business is expanding the use of its Microsite (mini website) solution to communicate important content for meetings digitally, instead of printing and mailing annual reports and other paper-based materials.
We already provide this service to more than 1,000 clients globally, who are now able to reduce printing and mailing costs and communicate shareholder information in a more sustainable way. Microsites have reduced printed materials dramatically over the last three years, and we are aiming to reduce CO2 emissions from supporting documents by a further 40% by FY28.
Curbing paper shareholder statements
In South Africa, our Issuer Services team has stopped printing and posting bi-annual statements from companies to their shareholders. Shareholders can now access these statements online through our Investor Centre platform. This has prevented 90,000 packs from being posted out on behalf of our clients each year from FY23 onwards. This type of initiative is also underway across other global locations.
Saving a step when verifying loans
In Canada, our Corporate Trust team has started using software that automatically sources required documents to facilitate mortgage title verification from the country’s two largest Land Registry offices. This means lenders no longer need to send us 3-5 pages worth of documents from the Land Registry for each title verification we process. Instead, lenders only need to send additional documents for 10% to 15% of borrowers.
We estimate that this has eliminated up to 150,000 pieces of paper in FY23. It has also enabled us to process files faster by automating 69% of the end-to-end process.
Using online forms for Corporate Actions
Our Corporate Actions team in New Zealand is now utilising online forms for activities such as capital raisings and rights offers, instead of printed documents. This prevented 378,651 pieces of paper from being issued in FY22 and a further 53,004 pieces in FY23.
Investing in “beyond value chain” mitigation
Computershare has supported climate projects beyond our value chain, and maintained “carbon neutral” status since 2020 through our external partner’s certification.
Key to this is our continued purchase of verified carbon credits, which provide funding to projects with Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) and to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Want to know more?
Our annual ESG Report includes further information on our efforts to do the right thing by our people and communities.