We work to reduce our environmental footprint, while developing products and services that bring stakeholders together to address critical global environmental issues and provide essential insights.
A positive environmental impact through our products and services
Our products and services, which provide stakeholders globally with data that informs debate, supports decision-making and advances environmental research, represent our most significant environmental impact.
Risk
Risk provides essential data to enable the insurance market to remain resilient in response to a rapidly changing climate. To address increased risks of flooding and subsidence, Risk offers address-level risk scores, available at the point of quote and visually through its Map View solution. Providing detailed, timely risk data on a property-by-property basis supports insurers underwriting decisions and benefits consumers in making informed decisions about their policies and property choices.
Scientific, Technical & Medical
In the year, Elsevier contributed to the development and launch of an industry-wide, digital journal carbon calculator to assess the impact of journal publications using a common methodology. Elsevier is deploying the tool for a pilot project with the Royal Danish Library to assist them with carbon reporting of journal publications.
Legal
LexisNexis Practical Guidance (LPG) strengthens market understanding of environmental law and policy. Bespoke trackers cover environmental law topics in legislation, cases, consultations, and UK/EU divergence. LPG monitors and reports on major developments and events in the year such as COP30 to ensure information remains current and actionable. ESG and sustainability resources expanded in the year on climate change, environmental policy, and due diligence.
Exhibitions
RX uses its global platforms to amplify sustainability knowledge, drive responsible consumption and inspire behavioural change. RX’s portfolio of energy events including World Future Energy Summit, All Energy and Pollutec help to accelerate the clean energy transition. In 2025, RX’s Functional Fabric Fair Summer Edition featured over 150 sustainably certified suppliers, reflecting growing industry demand for responsible sourcing. Aluminium China brought together over 490 exhibitors in the year with themed zones focused on recycling and sustainable packaging solutions.
Across RELX
The CEO is responsible to the Board for environmental performance, and the CFO is our most senior environmental advocate. The CEOs of our business areas are responsible for complying with relevant environmental policy, legislation and regulations. The Global Head of Corporate Responsibility engages with the Board on environmental issues, and we work with Environmental Champions and dedicated engineering, design and real estate specialists to improve efficiency wherever possible in our portfolio.
We measure and report greenhouse gas emissions, implement decarbonisation strategies for emissions reductions and address residual emissions with high quality carbon removals, with the aim to achieve net zero across all carbon scopes by 2040. Details of our net zero transition road map are available on pages 218-219, and our Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosure is available on page 235. We are signatories of We Are Still In, a network of more than 3,900 organisations committed to combatting climate change and are members of the Aldersgate Group, an alliance of leaders from business and civil society that support actions for a sustainable economy.
In creating and delivering our products and services we have an impact on the environment through carbon emissions, energy and water usage. But where we can make the biggest difference is in our portfolio of environmental research, products and services, which further knowledge, promote best practice and inspire meaningful action.
* From reporting locations only, excluding estimates from non-reporting locations.
Actual environmental data covers approximately 80% of occupied floor space based on electricity reporting. When we are unable to obtain reliable data, for example from small serviced offices, we estimate energy consumption and water usage on actual data from our portfolio. In this way, our reported data covers all operations, for which we have operational control for the calendar year.
Scope 2 (location-based) emissions are calculated using grid average carbon emissions factors for all electricity sources.
Scope 2 (market-based) emissions are calculated using supplier-specific carbon emissions factors (where available) for renewable energy purchases.
Performance
We focus on delivering continuous improvement in our environmental performance and achieved the environmental objectives we set for 2025. We reduced our on-site energy consumption by 38% over 2024, with a reduction of 34% in our Scope 1 and Scope 2 (location-based) emissions. Scope 3 (flights) emissions increased by 24% over 2024 as business travel returns towards expected levels, but is 41% below 2019 emissions.
We reduced water consumption by 17% and continued to purchase 100% sustainable production paper.
Our carbon reduction targets are validated by the Science Based Targets Initiative as aligned with the 1.5°C criteria and include our Scope 3 targets:
- Reduce absolute Scope 3 emissions from purchased goods and services (incorporating capital goods), business travel and employee commuting by 30% in 2030 against a 2018 base year
- 60% of suppliers by spend covering purchased goods and services, fuel and energy related activities, upstream transportation and distribution and business travel will have science-based targets by 2027
Our indirect Scope 3 emissions can be found on page 63 of the Annual Report.
* From reporting locations, excluding estimated data.
** Percentage of paper graded as known and responsible sources by the Book Chain Project or certified by FSC/PEFC. Includes less than 0.1% of paper not yet graded or certified.
Climate change
Our Climate Change Statement supports the scientific community’s opinion that human activity is contributing to climate change and highlights our support for the Paris Climate Agreement which aims to limit climate change to 1.5°C.
The RELX Climate Change Statement is available at www.relx.com/cr-downloads.
As a signatory to the Climate Pledge, we are part of a community of more than 630 organisations working to address climate change by measuring and reporting greenhouse gas emissions and implementing decarbonisation strategies to achieve significant emissions reductions.
Since 2010, we have reduced our Scope 1 and 2 location-based carbon emissions by 87%. We set an internal carbon price which our business areas must pay for the carbon they emit. In 2025, it was $50 per ton of CO2.
We have a Net Zero Transition Plan which can be found on page 218 of the Annual Report.
Water
The majority of our sites use water from municipal supply and are in developed countries with a high capability for water adaptation and mitigation.
Our water usage decreased 17% between 2024 and 2025, primarily due to continued office space consolidation.
We engage with internal water experts who produce water related content for our customers. In 2025, we offered customers 26 peer-reviewed journals in water science and technology, including Water Research. We also support water projects through the RELX Environmental Challenge (see Annual Report page 41).
Energy
As RELX almost exclusively occupies leased locations with few opportunities for onsite generation, we rely on green tariffs and renewable energy certificates (RECs) to purchase renewables equal to 100% of our global electricity consumption. In 2025, we purchased green-e certified wind and solar RECs in addition to green tariffs.
Energy consumption at our offices, representing 62% of the total on-site energy, decreased in 2025 due to continued office space consolidation. Energy from our owned data centres, constituting 38% of our total on-site energy consumption, decreased as we continued to move activity to the cloud. The purpose-built modern data centres of cloud providers have significantly lower emissions due to their large scale and measures such as the use of renewable energy.
We are a member of RE100, a global initiative bringing together businesses committed to 100% renewable electricity.
Waste
Total waste generated across all locations decreased by 52% in 2025, primarily due to the disposal of venue and warehouse space.
Of waste generated across all locations, we estimate 52% was recycled and 86% diverted from landfill through recycling, composting and waste energy generation. Of the waste produced at our reporting locations, excluding estimates from non-reporting locations, 57% was recycled. In 2025, waste sent to landfill from reporting locations, excluding estimates from non-reporting locations, decreased by 27% due to the continued office space consolidation projects and changes in waste management practices, including use of waste-to-energy processing.
Where reliable measurements are not available, we calculate waste based on weight sampling and by counting waste containers leaving our premises. Although local municipalities most often carry out sorting and recycling, we report all waste as going to landfill unless we have robust evidence. For this reason, performance against our waste target is linked to our reporting locations.
We work to reduce packaging waste from our physical products. In the UK, we provide information on packaging waste in line with the UK government’s Extended Producer Responsibility Regulations. As a member of the Biffpack compliance scheme, we report the amount of obligated packaging (as defined in the regulations) we generate through selling, pack and fill and importation of relevant products.
Paper
The quantity of production paper purchased in 2025 decreased by 11% over 2024 and by 74% since 2010 as we deliver more of our products online, reflecting a circular economy approach to conducting our business. In 2025, we reviewed the RELX Paper Policy maintaining our commitment to avoiding deforestation and other environmental impacts through the purchase of sustainably sourced papers.
In 2025, 100% of RELX production papers were graded as known and responsible sources or certified to FSC or PEFC. We endeavour to limit any environmental impact and reduce paper wastage by implementing measures like smaller print runs, digital over litho printing, print on demand and using lighter papers where possible.
RELX is a founding member of the Book Chain Project’s paper module (PREPS) and helped create the PREPS database which identifies the pulps and forest sources of paper. The RELX Sustainable Production Paper Policy commits us to purchase only sustainable papers – graded three or five in Bookchain, or certified to FSC or PEFC.RELX complies with relevant legislation and work was undertaken in the year to make any necessary preparations for the incoming European Union Deforestation Regulations (EUDR).
Impacts in our value chain
Scope 3
In 2025, we continued to use the RELX CO2 Hub, an internal analytics platform, to help quantify our Scope 3 emissions. We estimated supplier emissions by collecting actual data from key suppliers to derive carbon intensity factors. The factors are then extrapolated by spend category to cover our full supply chain.
Scope 1 and Scope 2 carbon emissions of our suppliers, excluding business travel, cloud computing services, distribution and events (see below), is approximately 50,000 tCO2e per annum.
Using location-specific emissions factors and office attendance data, we estimated emissions from home working in the year to be around 12,000 tCO2e.
RELX Global Real Estate and Corporate Responsibility teams, work alongside contracted facilities colleagues to develop local travel plans. Travel plans contain information about local transport routes and seek to inform colleagues of commuter loan schemes and encourage sustainable transport use. Using daily refreshed office attendance data, we estimated emissions in 2025 to be around 5,900 tCO2e.
RX’s Net Zero Carbon Events initiative, aims to develop methodologies to quantify and reduce emissions associated with the events industry. While attendance at one of our events can replace the need for multiple business trips, we gather emissions data associated with an event’s value chain. RX produced a first Sustainability Report in the year which can be found at www.rxglobal.com/sustainability.
We encourage the re-use of electronic equipment and only recycle equipment once it cannot be re-used. We partner with Camara Education to donate equipment to provide access to computers for students in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia. Electrical equipment is refurbished for use or sold with proceeds going to set up computer labs, train teachers and provide locally relevant educational content. Any equipment that cannot be refurbished is disposed of according to local regulations.