Our Impact: A Message From Our Head of ESG

Impact Report 2023

A Message From Our Head of ESG

From the Desk of Leslie Follmer:

Thank you for reading Aon’s 2023 Impact Report.

At Aon, our impact is about what we do as a firm and what we do for our clients. I’m delighted to share the continued progress we’ve made against our long-term commitments, which are deeply embedded in our overall strategy and require the support of our full firm to deliver.

In 2023, we advanced our existing core commitments and new initiatives across the following focus areas:

Environmental

As a firm, we remain committed to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2030 and calibrate and constantly measure our progress. We continue to work to manage and measure our total footprint through the key drivers of travel, commuting, real estate, investments and our supply chain, with the support from Aon Business Services and our flexible Smart Working strategy. As we drive efficiencies in our operations and cost base, we have found that this not only helps us manage our carbon footprint but it also improves employee wellbeing and client service. Our colleagues play an active role in our sustainability efforts through our new global Sustainability Network, where climate-focused ideas and actions are shared and amplified across our firm.

Social

Our colleagues are at the heart of everything we do, and our Aon United strategy is designed to attract, retain, develop, reward and support our people. Inclusion remains an essential part of our culture, and we continue to take steps to embed inclusive principles and practices throughout our organization. Our culture of feedback allows us to be more agile in addressing the needs of our colleagues. As of December 2023, colleague engagement remained at 80 percent, in line with our firm’s all-time high scores. Our managers are essential to engagement and development and we’re particularly pleased to report that 83 percent of respondents felt their managers supported their career development.

More broadly, we aim to reflect our values and social commitments in our work with clients, business practices, community involvement and philanthropic efforts. Our work this year with the IFRC in the UK is a fantastic example of how we’re using our core capabilities around risk to help communities increase their resilience.

Governance

We remain committed to the highest ethical and compliance standards and design our governance structures to inform business decisions and improve the way we serve our clients. Our Board of Directors regularly reviews environmental, social and governance risks – and in 2023 we enhanced certain Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) definitions to further address and highlight these risk. Board and ERM program oversight includes ongoing review of cyber/data security and privacy matters. In addition, our Inclusion and Wellbeing Sub-Committee of our Board of Directors continues to provide oversight and guidance on these essential strategies and initiatives.

It’s been an incredible year, and we look forward to building on this progress in 2024 – as we continue to create value and positive impact for clients, colleagues and all stakeholders.

Thank you,

Leslie Follmer
Head of Investor Relations and ESG, Aon plc