Reducing GHG:
Goals and Strategies
With the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) declaring 2030 as the deadline for achieving a radical reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to avoid the more significant repercussions of climate change, the task ahead, while momentous, is clear. And for technology companies, the solutions lie in a combination of efforts: from incorporating environmental principles into product design and replacing fossil fuel sources with alternative methods for their energy and electricity use, to purchasing carbon offsets for environmental improvements as well as engaging with consumers to shift behaviors and actions.
AT&T
AT&T, which reduced its Scope 1 GHG emissions in 2018 by 24.7% against a 2008 baseline, deployed a new Climate Change Analysis Tool to help anticipate the potential impacts of climate change on its infrastructure and operations 30 years ahead. The company has also established a 10X carbon reduction goal to enable carbon savings 10 times the footprint of its operations by 2025. To meet that goal, it is making its network more efficient, deploying newer technologies and teaming up with other companies to measure the GHG emissions reduction of products across the food, consumer, health care and real estate sectors.
Cisco
Software solutions provider Cisco has reached 90% of its goal – to avoid one million metric tons cumulative of GHG emissions in its supply chain from 2012 to 2020 – at the end of FY2018, while Intel’s direct GHG emissions decreased 32% on a per unit or intensity basis.
Best Buy
On the retail end, having achieved its interim goal of achieving a 51% reduction in its carbon emissions, Best Buy reestablished new 2030 goals in 2019: reduce carbon emissions in operations by 75% over a 2009 baseline on the way to becoming carbon neutral by 2050.
As for helping others measure and account for emissions, Google announced a new tool that would allow cities around the world to estimate city-specific GHG emissions from transportation and buildings, rooftop solar energy potential, as well as providing NASA climate forecasts, derived from Google’s proprietary data and other data sources.
