68 Major Companies Join Climate Action Pledge
As the UN climate talks in Paris near, 68 additional companies have joined the White House-led American Business Act on Climate Pledge.
Companies making the pledge have set greenhouse gas reduction and renewable energy sourcing goals for 2020 and beyond, and are focusing on increasing energy efficiency, boosting low-carbon investing. The new companies include: Autodesk, Best Buy, Bloomberg, CA Technologies, Dell, eBay, EMC, General Mills, Ikea, Kellogg’s, Levi Strauss & Co., L’Oreal, Mars, Nestle, Nike, PG&E, Starbucks, Unilever and The Walt Disney Company.
This second round of business pledges at the White House — in addition to 13 company pledges announced in July — brings the total number of companies to 81.
By signing the pledge, companies are:
- Voicing support for a strong outcome at the COP21 international climate talks in Paris.
- Demonstrating an ongoing commitment to climate action by announcing significant new pledges to reduce their emissions, increase low-carbon investments, deploy more clean energy and take other actions to build more sustainable businesses and tackle climate change.
- Setting an example for their peers by mobilizing for leadership and action on climate change challenges and goals.
Among the new pledge commitments:
- Best Buy commits to reduce carbon emissions at its North American facilities by 45 percent by 2020 (from 2009 levels). The new commitment is more than double its previous goal of a 20 percent reduction by 2020.
- Mars commits to achieve zero waste to landfill across all its sites by 2015 and eliminate 100 percent of GHG emissions from across its global operations by 2040.
- PG&E commits to invest about $3 billion a year to modernize the electric grid so it can better integrate distributed solar, energy storage, electric vehicles and other low-carbon technologies. It also commits to support implementation of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and provide customers with electricity that is more than 60 percent carbon-free by 2020.
- Ikea commits to produce as much renewable energy as the total energy consumed in global operations by 2020. This goal has already been met in the US due to the Ikea Group’s major wind farm in Illinois.
- Kellogg’s commits to further reduce energy and GHG emissions by an additional 15 percent from its 2015 performance.
- L’Oreal USA commits to reduce CO2 emissions at its plants and distribution centers by 60 percent in absolute terms by 2020 (from 2005 baseline.)
Last week, 14 major companies based or with large-scale operations in the US have voiced strong support for a new global climate agreement at the UN climate talks in Paris.
In a statement organized by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), the companies — Alcoa, Alstom, BHP Billiton, BP, Calpine, HP, Intel, Lafargeholcim, National Grid, PG&E, Rio Tinto, Schneider Electric, Shell and Siemens — called for “a more balanced and durable multilateral framework guiding and strengthening national efforts to address climate change.”