As an international financial institution with a public mandate, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) strives to implement environmental, social and governance best practices within its operations.
This 2021 publication is the third in a continuing series. The report provides a comprehensive account of the ESM’s carbon footprint arising from its operations in Luxembourg City covering the full year of 2020. It also compares the 2020 performance against the ESM’s 2019 as well as its 2018 base year performance.
The report takes into account the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which unfolded at the beginning of 2020 and brought about major changes in the ESM’s day-to-day operations and environmental performance. This year’s report therefore also includes specific sub-sections focusing on teleworkingrelated emissions within Chapter 2.2: Building-related emissions; as well as Chapter 2.3: Impact of Covid-19 and new ways of working.
As in previous years, the carbon footprint calculations are based on an extensive review of internal and external documentation and activity data, as well as exchanges with external data providers. The report is prepared in accordance with the International Greenhouse Gas Protocol – a Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard. Furthermore, teleworking emissions were estimated set out by EcoAct in their 2020 Homeworking emissions Whitepaper.
The ESM is committed to producing a carbon footprint report on an annual basis to monitor its progress in decreasing its carbon footprint. In the spirit of transparency, the report is made available to the public.