Making a positive impact on society
To us, sustainability is a mindset, not a checklist, and we are working to ensure that it is integrated into all aspects of our business operations and culture.
Ashleigh Theophanides, Chief Sustainability Officer for Deloitte Africa
Our purpose-driven approach to responsible business
Our commitment to responsible business is rooted in our Purpose of making an impact that matters for our people, clients, and wider society. It outlines our beliefs and commitments on how we bring our Purpose to life through our business practices, including the strategic choices on who we work with and the work we do as a firm.
World Climate
Despite our continent having one of the lowest contributions to greenhouse gas emissions, we remain the most vulnerable continent – with the myriad of socio-economic challenges already faced by African countries, we cannot afford to add to the list climate change related challenges such as frequent droughts, food insecurity, severe flooding, displacements, and land degradation. Climate change is not a choice. It’s billions of them.
WorldClass
The widening gap in the education sector, coupled with challenges in increasing inequality and unemployment, and the impact of climate change – particularly with regards to the threat to food security – cements the need to identify affordable, sustainable, practical yet scalable solutions across our strategic pillars of education, entrepreneurship and agriculture.
We are cognisant of the power that can be unlocked through strategic partnerships and remain optimistic that in spite of these challenges, we will make a sustainable impact on our continent, as we journey towards impacting 20 million Africans by 2030.
In 2022 alone we invested in partnerships projected to impact 3.6 million lives across Africa by 2030.
Impact Every Day
Deloitte For Good platform
Deloitte employees participate in a number of causes of their choice where they donate goods, money and/or volunteer time. In South Africa, a great need was in KwaZulu-Natal, which was besieged by July unrests followed by devastating floods.
We leveraged our Deloitte ForGood platform during the July 2021 social unrest and provided humanitarian relief responses to flood relief efforts.
World Economic Forum alliance creates solutions to support Africa’s growth
Through a strategic alliance with the World Economic Forum (WEF) Deloitte is making an impact by applying a cross-section of skills and talents on globally interconnected problems and challenges.
Key facts about the Deloitte and WEF alliance:
- In 2020, Deloitte Africa entered a “strategic partnership unlimited” agreement with WEF, which provides access to all WEF’s platforms
- Deloitte Africa has enjoyed active collaboration in 35+ WEF projects, supported by 12 Deloitte member firms covering 35 topics, from Artificial Intelligence to social innovation
- Over 200 Deloitte leaders and practitioners are engaged in WEF
NextGen Advisory Council lend their voice to solving the continent’s challenges
It is predicted that Millennials and Gen Zs will make up almost 75% and 25% of the global workforce respectively by 2025. Deloitte Africa has surpassed this global trend, and in 2018, the Deloitte Africa Executive Committee established an Advisory Council comprised of young leaders from across the firm to provide input into strategic executive decisions such as retention of talent and climate.According to Chief Sustainability Officer, Ashleigh Theophanides: “The NextGen Advisory Council is supporting our Executive leadership to tackle some of the most complex challenges that we face as Deloitte Africa. These include how we embed responsible environmental practices within our firm, recommending initiatives to enhance our talent retention models to attract and retain our professionals, and embedding purpose beyond profit into everything we do.”
Innovatively addressing youth unemployment
Deloitte Africa formally established its Enterprise and Supplier Development (ESD) programme in 2019 with the objective of developing, nurturing and strengthening black-owned businesses in South Africa into sustainable and thriving businesses.
Homegrown future leaders make their mark at 2022 One Young World Summit
The One Young World Global Summit was held during September 2022 in Manchester, United Kingdom. This event brought together over 2 000 of the brightest young leaders from over 190 countries who share a passion for accelerating social impact. Delegates were counselled by influential political, business, and humanitarian leaders such as Eighth Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon, former CEO of Unilever and Climate and Equality Campaigner Paul Polman, Advocate Thuli Madonsela, Meghan Markle, and many others to harness the knowledge and skills needed for being impactful change makers.
Exposing African youth to the power of AI and robotics
The Deloitte Africa journey with Dr. Sidy Ndao began in 2021 when the Pan African Robotics Competition (PARC), which he founded, emerged as one of the top 12 innovations in the WorldClass Uplink Education Challenge. The Challenge was born out of the Deloitte and UpLink – World Economic Forum partnership.
The PARC focuses on STEM education particularly in programming, robotics and coding to upskill students across 33 African countries, encouraging them to leverage their acquired skills to solve for challenges within their communities.
Health equity
Health equity is the fair and just opportunity for everyone to fulfill their human potential in all aspects of health and wellbeing. This overall state of wellbeing is influenced not just by access to healthcare, but also by systemic and unintentional bias and the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age—the social, economic and environmental drivers of health.
While history shows that global society has made tremendous strides in extending average life expectancy, marginalised communities are still more likely to experience worse health outcomes than the overall population. These health inequities are being exacerbated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, forced migration and the rising cost of living.
Achieving health equity is a complex, global challenge—one where many organisations have a role to play, including Deloitte. Over the past year, Deloitte firms have taken action by launching Deloitte Health Equity Institutes (DHEIs) in Africa, India and the US.
