Climate Change Commitment

THE MWH CLIMATE CHANGE COMMITMENT

Global climate change presents a leadership opportunity for MWH with respect to our clients and projects, our business management and our communities. We understand that there are additional steps that we can take to reduce the effects of our business on climate change and we have committed to embed our company purpose - Building a Better World - in our corporate culture and everything we do.

Inspired in part by our company purpose and in part by our invitation to participate in the Clinton Global Initiative, MWH developed a multi-year, multi-faceted Climate Change Commitment aimed at combating climate change and raising awareness of its causes and effects. MWH also became a member of The Climate Group, an international organization dedicated to advancing business and government leadership on climate change.

The MWH Climate Change Commitment has three primary components:

• Engage with clients to deliver community education, drive reductions in project energy and emissions and create opportunities to advocate for sustainable projects.
• Reduce our directly controllable emissions through education, understanding, implementation and carbon-offset projects.
• Educate children on the water cycle and climate change in partnership with clients to leave a legacy in the communities in which we live and work.

To engage clients, MWH has hosted workshops and quarterly calls aimed at bringing together experts from varied backgrounds to create an open dialogue about how to face the global challenge of climate change. MWH enlisted the help of company climate change experts from our United Kingdom-based operations, who have been on the leading edge of managing urban drainage and other challenges for quite some time.

In Europe, we have developed a centre of excellence in energy and climate change which has been providing several clients with innovative energy efficiency solutions and has helped them save several tons of carbon emissions and energy.

Our ability to influence our utility clients’ project investment decisions is one of the most powerful contributions we can make to carbon footprint reduction. For instance, in UK, helping a client to choose a lower energy, lower emissions solution on one major project reduces emission by more than the whole of our own company carbon footprint.

Reducing our carbon emissions by 10% is an ambitious goal for a global company, but we analyzed, measured and devised strategies to achieve it. We adopted ways to make our air travel more sustainable. We made a $1.5 million capital investment to improve our video conferencing capabilities.

We also examined where we worked and the materials we used for our projects. We set stringent, uniform guidelines for our supply-chain managers to follow. As a result, we began using more environmentally friendly materials on the job site. And as our company grows and we need more space, we have adopted a policy to sign leases only in buildings that are certified under the federal LEED program.

In addition, we also developed a worldwide program for middle-school students which provided them with education about the water cycle, energy use and climate change. The idea is to empower youngsters with information, to encourage them to pursue careers in science and engineering and, hopefully, to help spark the bright leaders of tomorrow who can solve the problems of today.