racing toward a more sustainable future
The story of the relx climate race
“To limit climate change to 1.5°C, business must play a significant role. By making a commitment to net zero through The Climate Pledge, we aim to do our part, tackling climate change through our own operations and engagement with our suppliers, customers and other stakeholders. Engaging in the RELX Climate Race allowed colleagues to learn more about climate change, take actions to lower your personal carbon footprint and help to develop a sustainability mindset that will aid RELX in our journey to Net Zero.”
- Nick Luff, CFO, RELX
Climate change presents one of the greatest challenges of our age; we are all in a race against time. We’re starting to see our warming world creating major weather and environmental changes, from drought in some countries to flooding in others. However, solving climate change also presents a positive opportunity to create a fairer, cleaner, better world. Climate action requires us all to make changes, both at work and at home. Thus the first RELX Climate Race was born in April, 2023.
The RELX Climate Race was a fun and interactive one-month challenge, in which colleagues learned about climate change and took tangible steps to lower their carbon footprint, which they recorded on the innovative Giki Zero tool. The Giki tool provides recommendations and guidance to reduce one's carbon footprint, tailored to individual lifestyles and geographical locations.
The RELX Climate Race came following three successful pilots in the RELX divisions. Elsevier was able to save an estimated 124 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions during their pilot of 250 colleagues.
The 2023 RELX Climate Race brought together an incredible 880 RELX colleagues to engage in a friendly and educational challenge. Curious about the individual experiences and the impressive carbon, water and plastic reduction colleagues achieved throughout the month? Read on!
what our people had to say about the experience
"Giki helps to break down reducing climate impact, which can feel a little overwhelming, into simple actions that feel manageable – like running the dishwasher on an eco-setting or being more thoughtful about purchases by avoiding next-day delivery services. It’s so handy that someone has done the research for you already, so it’s really about picking actions that work for your circumstances and available time."
Katherine Eve
Policy Director, Elsevier
“This contest came at the right time for me, as I had difficulties onboarding my family on doing the same kind of sustainable changes I was trying to implement. This contest based on a fun UI has been what finally convince my daughters to do an effort. We tried to implement at home all the simple steps suggested that don’t require a lot of effort, just remembering to do it, and after a short time, they became habits. We turned it into a game with my family trying to help me climb the leaderboard, and it worked!”
Olivier Hillion
Project Manager, LexisNexis Risk Solutions
“It’s the second time I participated in the Climate Race with Elsevier. I am glad our company takes responsibility by increasing awareness and motivating employees to discover further steps they can take. As I am already taking many steps in my life to reduce carbon print, I act as a role model among peers, friends, and family. Reducing waste, reducing animal-based nutrition, and green travelling are just some examples. The challenge still gave me ideas where I can improve and shows that there is a long way to go for all of us to tackle global challenges.”
Josephine Ziel
Product Manager Content - Biology & Biomedical at Elsevier
"Using Giki has made me a lot more mindful of the impact of my actions and it has given me a load of ideas to be even more sustainable! I enjoyed being able to tick off the actions that I already do, and consider other things (both big and small) that I can do to improve my carbon footprint! The Leader board has also made using Giki a lot more fun!"
Cheryl Sue
Legal Taxonomist (APAC), LexisNexis Legal & Professional
"We were ready to make some changes to our garden, and took some inspiration from the RELX Climate race. We’ve focussed on growing more our own fruit and veg by planting up some new raised beds, and filling the greenhouse with tomatoes, courgettes and strawberries. To prepare for another hot summer we’ve also added a water butt and compost heap to the garden. We installed a double car charger last year, but this was the also right time to make the switch to an all-electric car. While we can’t do everything at once, we’re happy to reduce our climate footprint by taking any smaller steps that we can.
John Cooper
Head of Global Digital Product Propositions, RX
Check out more testimonials from our colleagues about their RELX Climate Race experience in this short video
measuring the impact our employees made on the planet
Giki reported the following achievements
"An individual taking a step is progress. But a community taking steps together leads to real change."
If you would like to learn more about sustainability at RELX, visit the RELX Corporate Responsibility's Environment page.
RELX is a global provider of information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers.
We help scientists make new discoveries, doctors and nurses improve the lives of patients and lawyers win cases. We prevent online fraud and money laundering, and help insurance companies evaluate and predict risk. Our events enable customers to learn about markets, source products and complete transactions. In short, we enable our customers to make better decisions, get better results and be more productive.
Built with Shorthand