Renewable
Energy
According to the International Energy Agency’s Renewables 2018 forecast, renewables will grow by over 20% in the next five years. Much of this growth, according to Deloitte’s 2019 Renewable Energy Outlook, will be driven by declining costs of wind and solar generation, advances in battery storage technology, grid operators’ growing expertise and expanding toolset for integrating intermittent renewable power into the grid, and, most significant, robust demand from most market segments, including corporations’ growing appetite for renewables. As of mid-October 2018, corporations had purchased nearly 5 gigawatts (GW) of renewables through a variety of procurement routes.
Apple & Intel
Technology companies have led the way by investing in renewable energy, be it solar or wind. One hundred percent of Apple’s global facilities, for example, including offices, retail stores and data centers, are powered today by renewable energy. Two-thirds of this energy comes from Apple-created projects. With its manufacturing accounting for 74% of Apple’s carbon footprint, 44 of its suppliers have committed to power all their Apple production with 100% renewable energy, ensuring that the company is on track to bring 4 GW of new clean energy into the supply chain. As of January 2019, 66% of the company’s renewable energy was sourced from self-created projects, with the remainder coming from equity investments and long-term energy contracts. At the end of 2018, 71% of Intel’s global power and 100% of the power used in its U.S. and EU operations were green power. Additionally, Intel campuses in 15 countries now have approximately 95 alternative energy installations using 20 different technology applications.
Cisco & Facebook
Software leader Cisco reports sourcing 82% of its global electricity from renewable sources, putting it on track to achieve a goal of 85% by FY2022. Facebook is not far behind with 75% of its energy needs coming from renewables in 2018, as it closes in on achieving its goal of sourcing 100% of energy used for facilities from renewables by 2020.
AT&T
Telecommunications giant AT&T has become one of the nation’s largest purchasers of wind energy by investing in up to 820 megawatts of wind energy projects to power the American grid. With this investment, AT&T is reducing GHG emissions equivalent to taking more than 530,000 cars off the road for a year.
Verizon
Verizon committed in 2018 to source or generate renewable energy equivalent to 50% of its total annual electricity consumption by 2025 by continuing to develop renewables at its own operations and by sourcing green energy from external sources. The media and telecommunications company expects to add 24 megawatts of on-site green energy by 2025. In early 2019, Verizon issued its first-ever green bond, a debt instrument aligned with the interests of a growing number of environmentally conscious investors. The bond’s $1 billion proceeds were used to fund important environmental initiatives, including renewable energy installations.
RE100: Consumer Technology Leaders
RE100 is a global corporate leadership initiative led by The Climate Group in partnership with CDP, created to accelerate change toward zero carbon grids at global scale. The initiative works to increase corporate demand for – and the supply of – renewable energy, by bringing together major companies committed to sourcing 100% renewable electricity globally in the shortest possible timeline – by 2050 at the latest. These CTA member companies have joined RE100 on the journey to 100% renewables:
- 3M
- Adobe
- Apple
- Autodesk
- Dell
- HP
- Hewlett Packard
Enterprise
- Johnson & Johnson
- Logitech
- Lyft
- Microsoft
- Panasonic
- Philips
- Schneider Electric
- Sony
- T-Mobile
- Walmart
