Parsons Environmental Impact

Environment

We define our core value of sustainability as the creation or enhancement of environmental, economic, and social balance, as realized through client deliverables, business activities, employee actions, and community engagement. Backed by empowered teams, we implement these principles and best practices in corporate operations and customer solutions to address environmental risk and minimize our carbon footprint.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

We acknowledge the risks that climate change poses to the natural environment, human health, and economy and believe that we have a responsibility to help mitigate its effects. We have set a target to reduce our absolute Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2025 compared to a 2019 baseline. This target was developed to be in line with the 2 degree scenario defined by the Paris Agreement.

2023 GHG Emissions Distribution By Source And Scope

Scope 1 And Scope 2 GHG Emissions
(MT CO2e)

Facilities Energy Consumption

Flexible work options allow employees to work remotely on a part-time or full-time basis, which reduces the need for office space, and we partner with property owners in our leased facilities to implement energy-saving lighting and HVAC systems. Nonetheless, because we have limited control over our electricity consumption in our leased spaces, we have purchased Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) which has contributed to a 67.5% year-over-year decrease in our Market Based Scope 2 emissions for our grid-purchased electricity.

2023 Facilities Energy Consumption (MWh)

Facilities Water Consumption (cubic meters estimated)

Water

Parsons’ offices obtain water from municipal water supplies. We partner with property owners in our leased facilities to adopt water conserving measured wherever possible to reduce impacts of our leased office facilities. In 2023, we were able to obtain data covering approximately 39% of our leased footprint. Total water use for the entire footprint was calculated by extrapolating based on our total area of leased real estate. In prior years, we only included home offices in our calculations in line with our GHG reporting. In 2023 we began including project offices and estimations of water usage in prior years has been updated to match this change in methodology.

Waste Diversion

Parsons leases 100% of our real estate footprint, and waste charges are typically included in total lessor charges, our waste data has been calculated using employee badge scan data for our home offices and project offices and an estimate of 2.45 pounds per person per day in the office (half of the EPA estimate of 4.9 pounds per person per day). Our office recycling programs vary by location, but we have corporate programs for recycling waste paper and office electronics in a safe and secure manner. In 2023, our North American operations diverted 85 metric tonnes of securely shredded paper and recycled or repurposed notebooks, PCs, monitors, servers, and other electronics equal to 30 metric tonnes of e-waste diverted from landfills. Additionally, in our Qatar and United Arab Emirates offices, we recycled or repurposed 957 hardware units.

Guiding Principles

We know that successful environmental performance must be grounded in effective policies and procedures. We continuously review and update our policies, procedures, training, and solutions to reflect best practices in the industry.

Sustainability Policy

Our sustainability policy, which applies to Parsons Corporation and all our businesses and subsidiaries worldwide as well as our suppliers/vendors per our Code of Conduct, affirms our commitment to sustainability and the mitigation of climate change impacts in our client solutions and in our internal operations.

Learn More

Sustainability is one of Parsons six core values. We are committed to providing sustainable and resilient solutions for our customers and in our internal operations. We also acknowledge the risks that climate change poses to the natural environment, human health, and economy and believe that we have a responsibility to help mitigate its effects.

All Parsons employees should consider specific sustainability approaches and best practices in their everyday work as well as on programs and within facilities under their purview. Sustainable solutions shall be implemented in a manner that is consistent with our company goals as well as our customers’ goals and objectives, using a value-based approach that considers the environmental, economic, and social aspects of sustainability. The Sustainability Working Group (SWG) shall develop tools, resources, and references that advance an enterprise-wide culture of sustainability and facilitate the ability of responsible parties to carry out this policy.

The Sustainability Handbook shall serve as the primary guidance document when evaluating and implementing sustainability practices in corporate operations and the delivery of client services. The SWG shall also propose appropriate metrics for tracking social, environmental, and economic sustainability performance for review and approval by executive leadership and the board of directors.

Where appropriate, targets shall be established to foster continuous improvement in Parsons' sustainability approaches and practices. The metrics shall be published in any corporate social responsibility reporting in alignment with the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and other applicable public disclosure frameworks. Regular internal reporting of sustainability performance metrics shall also be provided by the SWG to corporate executives and the board of directors. Parsons is also committed to quantifying, managing, and tracking our corporate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in order to achieve a science-based GHG emissions reduction target, whose goal is to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels. Parsons shall publicly report on progress toward the achievement of the established GHG emissions reduction target as part of our sustainability performance metrics.

Sustainable Procurement

We conduct procurement in an open and competitive manner, using fair and ethical business practices to ensure sustainable procurement, vendor management, and purchasing to enhance our supply chain. We capture environmental reporting governance and services information from our suppliers/vendors as they are added to our system.

Sustainability Handbook

Our Sustainability Handbook outlines procedures and processes for sustainability stewardship, describes our corporate culture of sustainability, identifies best practices, and provides guidance for internal and client sustainable solutions.