Impact Report
Bain’s dedication to social and environmental standards doesn’t end with our clients—sustainability is central to our firm strategy and embedded in our actions every day.
Carbon neutral since 2011 and regularly ranked as one of the best places to work, we strive every day to reduce our environmental footprint, enhance employee well-being, procure supplies and services sustainably, and maintain the highest ethical standards.
Climate change and the sustainable management of natural resources are an urgent priority. At Bain, we respect our planet by taking a number of steps to reduce our operational footprint.
This year, Bain celebrates 10 consecutive years of carbon neutrality across our global operations. This means we offset 100% of our greenhouse gas emissions, including every flight, taxi, and train that our employees take to visit clients, as well as every kilowatt-hour of energy required to power our 60 offices.
We reduced our emissions by 73% in 2020 compared with 2019, largely due to operational changes in light of the pandemic. While this was an exceptional year, we have been making meaningful annual reductions to our footprint since the launch of our carbon neutrality program—from 2011 to 2019, our carbon intensity declined 12%.
Bain has carefully selected a portfolio of offset investments linked to our sustainability priorities, our global office footprint, and our value chain. One example is our focus on low-carbon transportation. We offset 30% of our 2020 total carbon footprint with high-quality, nature-based carbon removal projects.
In addition, we are proud to have reached our goal of utilizing 100% renewable energy a year ahead of schedule. We have reduced our Scope 2 emissions by more than 60% over the past five years by creating energy-efficient office spaces and upgrading our technology infrastructure. For example, we have recently virtualized all of our servers, resulting in about 182 kilowatts of power savings.
Our global network of 45 grassroots green teams has propelled our sustainable transformation. Covering more than 85% of our operations, each green team is made up of employees who are passionate about reducing our environmental footprint and who champion sustainability initiatives in their local offices. They have enabled us to conserve energy and supported local efforts to reduce waste. Today, we divert 76% of our waste from landfills, with a target of 90% by 2030. Our goal is to have a green team in every office by the end of 2021.
Looking forward, as a signatory to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) “Business Ambition for 1.5⁰C” letter, Bain has committed to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2030. Limiting global warming to no more than 1.5° Celsius above preindustrial levels is a crucial step to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change.
Extraordinary teams are at the heart of Bain’s culture. In every office, on every team, you’ll find passionate, collaborative people who care for our clients, our communities, and our world.
Bain is proud to earn public recognition as one of the best places to work globally. We are the only company to rank No. 1 five times on Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work list, and we have maintained our position in the top four for the last 13 years. We also earned the No. 1 spot on the Vault Consulting 50, the publication’s list of the best employers in consulting.
We want Bain to continue to be a great place to work—for everyone. Others consistently recognize our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Here’s what they have to say about our inclusive, supportive culture:
In line with our commitment to continuously improve the employee experience, we prioritize gathering feedback from our employees. At the end of each client engagement, we survey all case team members to gauge their satisfaction and learn how we can better support them. We also conduct an annual satisfaction survey of all staff. The entire firm—at the operating committee, regional, office, and functional team levels—reviews and discusses the results. Every year, we aim to increase satisfaction scores across all regions, offices, functions, and demographic groups.
We believe Bain plays an essential role in advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in society. We aspire to lead through our actions and the results they achieve—for our firm, our clients, and our communities.
This starts with ensuring that our firm is truly diverse across many dimensions. But it also depends on building a culture where everyone feels they belong, knows they have the support of others, and trusts Bain to provide equitable opportunities to succeed.
We maintain an active network of affinity groups that complement our inclusive culture, giving members additional connections and support through coaching, mentoring, and professional development. These networks include members from both Bain and The Bridgespan Group, our sister nonprofit consulting organization.
In 2021, we published our first transparency report as an honest look at who we are today and who we want to be tomorrow. It also examines how our employees feel today, individually and collectively, and how we are delivering on the promise of belonging, support, and trust.
In our commitment to social impact, we strive for sustainability across every function of our operations, including sourcing and procurement. To achieve the objectives of our Sustainable Procurement Policy, we train our buyers in sustainable procurement practices. In 2020, 100% of our buyers globally completed the CIPS certification. In addition, we embedded sustainability into the targets and performance evaluations of every procurement leader. To ensure we continue our progress, Bain is adding a dedicated sustainability manager to our global procurement team. We have also developed standard language on sustainability for key supplier contracts.
Just as we hold ourselves to the highest standards, we expect our suppliers to do the same in their business operations. To support our suppliers on their sustainability journey, we developed a sustainable procurement fact sheet that details Bain policies and resources for suppliers to learn more about sustainability. We continuously engage our suppliers through formal meetings and surveys to understand their priorities and the impact of our policies.
True North guides everything we do at Bain. On a gyrocompass, true north is an unchanging point, unaffected by factors like magnetic forces or location. For us, True North is our unwavering commitment to always do the right thing by our clients, people, and communities. We believe in winning business through our expertise, talent, and integrity. We promote the same values in our suppliers, employees, and clients. These values and policies are outlined in our Supplier Code of Conduct and Sustainable Procurement Policy.
We have an individual and collective obligation to our clients, each other, and our company to ensure appropriate data security for all information assets within our control. Our employees are trained on crucial aspects of information security and regularly participate in scored trainings.
Also in line with True North, Bain has comprehensive policies covering a range of topics related to labor practices and human rights—including nondiscrimination, equal opportunity, and anti-harassment—which we deploy across all of our operations. We deploy our ethics policies in 100% of our operations and train 100% of our employees on them.
We publicly disclose our progress toward our environmental targets. Based on a comprehensive assessment of our sustainability program, CDP, a leading environmental ratings organization, awarded Bain an A- rating in 2020.
In 2021, Bain received a Gold-level corporate social responsibility rating from EcoVadis, a platform for environmental, social, and ethical performance ratings, as recognition of our leadership in sustainability. We ranked among the top 2% of companies in our industry on ESG performance.
We published Bain’s GRI Index 2020, aligned to the GRI Standards, to report on our environmental, social, and economic performance.
We signed the “Business Ambition for 1.5⁰C” letter, committing to reach net-zero carbon across all of our operations by 2030.
We are an active member of a global community of CEOs who aspire to a net-zero economy by continuously setting the bar higher and inspiring action across all sectors.
For more information, please contact SustainabilityAtBain@Bain.com.
