REFERENCE
Supporting data
This section provides the additional data, methodologies and supporting information that underpin the findings presented throughout this report.
BREAKDOWN
Our carbon data
Reporting Boundaries
We have taken an operational control approach to our organisational boundary. This includes all legal entities across the global footprint of Turner & Townsend for the calendar year of 2025, with a base year for our GHG emissions reporting in 2019. Our methodology aligns with the GHG Protocol standards and guidance, including the Corporate Standard, Scope 2 Guidance and Scope 3 Calculation Guidance. We also adhere to guidance stated from other third-parties such as the CDP and various country-level Government requirements for localised reporting, e.g. UK Government’s ESOS, SECR and PPN06/21 stipulations.
Updates
We are continually improving the completeness and accuracy of our GHG emissions inventory and refining our methodology as we learn more and improve data sources.
In alignment with CBRE, we make baseline adjustments if a methodology or organisational change results in a greater than 5% change (positively or negatively) in total Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions within the boundary of a GHG emissions reduction target.
In 2025, this included the adjustments required for the inclusion of our Principal Contracting activities, due to a merger of employees from CBRE to Turner & Townsend. This accounted for headcount, Scope 1, 2 and 3 emission changes across all years and significantly amended our base year calculations.
Furthermore, we have made incremental methodology updates to promote continual rigour and accuracy. All supply chain spend data is now processed via a partner programme called Carbon Trace. This fundamentally improves our supply chain emission calculations by actively moving from average-market emissions, to activity-based emissions, using supplier-provided and audited GHG emissions. Minor amends, in-line with GHG Protocol guidance, were introduced for Scope 1 energy data. These were applied to all years to allow for continued year-on-year comparison.
As of 2025, methodologies used to calculate GHG emissions are consistently applied across all categories and reporting years, enabling year-over-year comparability to track progress. These amends have been third-party verified, including all methodologies and calculations, by Apex Companies, LLC (Apex).
Scope 1 and 2
As a Professional Services business, our Scope 1 and 2 emissions remain a small element of our overall impact (<1% of market-based emissions).
Like many professional service organisations with offices in multi-tenanted buildings, we rely on a combination of primary data, landlord supplied data and industry or organisation-specific benchmarks.
We account for:
- Scope 1 - Direct emissions from stationary combustion – i.e. any gas used in boilers that are under our direct control for space heating or hot water.
- Scope 1 - Direct emissions from mobile combustion – i.e. Diesel, petrol and other fuel used by company cars or other similar fleet vehicles, owned by Turner & Townsend or under direct control (e.g. through a company car leasing scheme)
- Scope 1 - Direct Emissions from fugitive sources – i.e from refrigeration (such as air conditioning) under our direct control and ownership
- Scope 2 - Indirect Emissions from Purchased/Acquired Electricity – i.e. purchasing grid electricity from a supplier or via a landlord
- Scope 2 - Indirect Emissions from Purchased/Acquired Heating – i.e. purchasing heating from a landlord such as through the use of a landlord-controlled gas boiler
Our offices remain the primary environment where our people and visiting clients interact with the business, so it is imperative we showcase improvements in these areas as well as understanding how to decarbonise the bigger, more complex topics.
Additional to methodological and data quality improvements, we continue to invest and support landlords to enhance and modernise our working environment through schemes such as BMS improvements, continued roll-out of LED lighting with daylight and motion detection, digitising controls and setting improvement standards when seeking lease extensions or new leases.
Scope 3
- Conversely, the significant majority of our emissions arise from Scope 3 impacts. These effectively cover four sources: our supply chain, business travel, how our people commute (to offices, client sites and working from home patterns) and other office impacts outside Scope 1 and 2. These align to the GHG Protocol through the following:
- Category 1: Purchased Goods & Services – i.e. professional services or similar, including accountancy, architecture and engineering, catering and similar services. Note: we also include Category 2: Capital Goods, within this.
- Category 3: Fuel and Energy-Related Activities – i.e. well-to-tank extraction and transportation energy consumed for each unit of fuel and energy purchased.
- Category 5: Waste Generated in Operations (inc. water).
- Category 6: Business Travel i.e. all flights, trains and other movement associated with travel outside typical commuting. Also includes hotel stays.
- Category 7: Employee Commuting i.e. all travel modes associated with attending our offices or a client site (if that is the typical place of work). Also includes teleworking (working from home).
- Category 8: Upstream Leased Assets- i.e. Landlord controlled spaces and proportional share of communal area electricity, natural gas and office refrigerants.
Supply chain
Our supply chain across Categories 1 and 2, represents our largest impact area. We have significantly improved our taxonomy in this area to allow for a more mature, albeit spend-based, approach to be applied. This relies on the strength of our financial data, whilst we position for a transition to a hybrid approach, so we can account for activity-based data and reflect improved and informed sustainable procurement decision making, in future assessments.
Business Travel
Business travel covers all business-related air, hotel, rail, private car, taxi and related emissions. Data is primarily collated from third-party travel providers where we account for distance, transport mode, classification (i.e. economy or first class) and number of hotel nights realised. Additionally, some supplementary data is collected from finance departments related to employee expenses, typically for taxis, local light-rail or bus service use.
Commuting and teleworking
We undertake an annual commuter survey across our global business to collect data direct from our people on their commuting habits. This covers transport mode(s), fuel sources, distance and frequency of attending our offices, client sites (where deemed a primary office and not business travel) and working from home days. The including of teleworking is integral to reflect our continued flexible and adaptable working approach that we retained post-Covid-19 requirements. Survey data invariably represents a sample of the population and therefore we extrapolate results and assume data received is proportional to allow for reporting and analysis requirements. To assess teleworking (home working) emissions, we calculate teleworking hours across the business and followed an EcoAct (in partnership with Lloyds banking Group and NatWest Group) homeworking methodology to approximate these impacts.
Other office impacts
Outside Scope 1 and 2 emissions, we also account for emissions arising from waste produced, Fuel and Energy Related activities (FERA) and Upstream Leased Assets:
Waste: Waste accounts for GHG emissions resulting from the disposal or onward processing of waste generated in Turner & Townsend corporate offices. Actual data is often available at building and not tenant level within multi-tenanted businesses. In these instances, we estimate disposal and diversion of waste streams, aligned to audits and internal benchmarking. Although waste GHG emissions account for <0.1% of our absolute emissions, we report this category for integrity and in alignment with the Corporate GHG emissions reporting standards.
Fuel and energy related activities (FERA): FERA are comprised of emissions associated with transmission and distribution loses and production, processing and delivery of fuels or energy (well to tank) that are not accounted for in Scope 1 or Scope 2. These emissions are directly correlated to the combustion of fuels or electricity consumed in Turner & Townsend corporate offices and vehicle fleet.
Upstream leased assets: Include corporate office common area, natural gas and office refrigerants emissions from leased assets in which we do not have financial control over i.e. emissions from facilities under landlord’s control, and vehicles and equipment leased. Our common area and natural gas emissions were calculated by providing an allocation (based on a percentage of Scope 2 aspects), where direct data was not provided. Our office refrigerants aligns to GHG protocol and is based on the square footage of our office space, the global warming potential and emissions rates.
BREAKDOWN
GHG Performance Data
Clarifications and exclusions
We apply an operational control approach to our organisational boundary, including all Turner & Townsend Legal Entities across 63 countries and over 22,000 people. As a professional services company predominantly leasing office space, we rely on collaboration and mutual improvements with our supply chain and office partners (landlords, facility management organisations etc.) Regardless, our methodology is fully compliant with the GHG Protocol standards and guidance, including the Corporate Standard, Scope 2 Guidance and Scope 3 Calculation Guidance. Our targets are also verified by the SBTi in 2024.
- Exclusion: Investments (Scope 3, category 15) is currently excluded but it is intended to integrate at a time when there is confidence in the quality of the data and associated calculations.
- Clarification: Capital Goods (Scope 3, category 2) are included in Purchased Goods and Services (Scope 3, category 1) emissions to best allow improved methodology change from industry-average to activity-based data. This will remain under review.
- Clarification: All energy consumption from serviced office spaces, and co-working spaces, are accounted for in Scope 3, opposed to Scope 1 and 2 as per owned or permanent office spaces.
- Clarification: Teleworking emissions are included in Business Travel emissions. This is an optional inclusion Turner & Townsend chose to include for robust and transparent reporting.
- Clarification: Waste data is based on primary data where available, apportioning from landlords or benchmarking (from Turner & Townsend and CBRE waste audits)
- Clarification: Group headcount has been accounted for within the UK due to the significant majority of headcount based in our Leeds and London offices. This includes staff working on operational roles such as HR, Corporate Responsibility etc.
Key performance metrics
● Indicates a year-on-year decrease
● Indicates a year-on-year increase
● Indicates no significant year-on-year change
Calendar year 2025 GHG regional profile
Key supportive metrics
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