On April 20, 2023, nearly 1,100 Nielsen employees across 24 countries gathered virtually and in person to mark Nielsen’s tenth annual Earth Day celebration.
Nielsen employees celebrated with volunteer activities and events to learn more about protecting our environment, reducing our footprints, and understanding the intersection of environmental and social issues. Our Green Business Resource Group (BRG) took the lead on the activities, which contributed more than 2,600 volunteer and engagement hours across 97 events and individual initiatives. This is nearly 45% more time spent on our Earth Day celebration compared to last year, reflecting Nielsen’s ongoing commitment to environmental responsibility and climate justice.
Nielsen employees around the world cleaned up beaches and public parks, planted trees and prepared garden beds, and joined virtual events to learn about composting and the impact of waste on chronically marginalized communities. In total, volunteers collected almost 3,250 kilograms of waste and donated or planted 143 trees and plants.
“There is great power in a group of committed, thoughtful, compassionate individuals coming together to create change. It was with this affirmation and hope that I started our environmental day of service 10 years ago!,” said Yamini Dixit, Senior Director, Corporate Citizenship, Nielsen. “Seeing this commitment strengthen over the years has been humbling and empowering. I look forward to our continued movement – together– towards climate justice and equity.”
Earth Day also provided an opportunity to consider how Nielsen data, solutions and talent can make a positive impact on our environment, through our Data for Good® program. Dozens of employees heard from Jocelyn Azada, Director, Business Diversity, ESG, and Risk, and Dana Siler, QA Engineer, Product Leadership, about their idea for a report and content metric on scientific content in extreme weather reporting. This proposed climate content rating project won the company’s 2022 Data for Good Idea Challenge. With the help of Nielsen volunteers, Azada and Siler are currently rolling out a pilot to take this initiative forward.
“This climate content rating project combines my intense desire to help mitigate climate change with my talents for working with data and code,” said Dana Siler, project co-lead. “I sincerely hope that we can help change the world by educating more people to connect extreme weather with climate change.”
Beyond our Earth Day celebration, Nielsen’s commitment to sustainability extends year-round. As part of our 2022 ESG report, we established three 2024 environmental goals:
- Reduce our on-premises application server footprint to 10%.
- Reduce our business travel spend by 25% from our 2019 pre-COVID baseline, and implement a travel policy that will maintain the reduced travel emissions.
- Ensure that all of our e-waste managed through our field operations team is diverted from landfills and is recycled, refurbished or reused.
We look forward to sharing our progress in our 2023 ESG Report.
