CDP partners with The Climate Group over the delivery of RE100, gathering information on companies’ renewable power production and procurement and coordinating the activities of the Technical Advisory Group. Here Technical Manager, Roberto Zanchi blogs on how updates to this year’s CDP climate change questionnaire will help to drive corporate adoption of renewables.
At CDP we are keen to help remove the barriers between companies and their low-carbon goals, which is why this year we are piloting a new component in our annual climate change questionnaire. Companies will now have the opportunity to share information about their renewable energy purchases and production.
Companies are already sharing data on the emissions factors they apply to their energy purchases. Over the course of the past four years, we achieved this by progressively aligning our reporting system with the recommendations of the widely-recognized GHG Protocol.
This year, CDP goes one step further with the implementation of the dual reporting requirement for scope 2 emissions. This means that companies will disclose information about both the physical emissions of the power grid they source electricity from, as well as the sources of power behind their contracts. As Bloomberg reports, this could help spark fresh business demand for renewable energy.
Through RE100, a joint initiative between CDP and the Climate Group, we are already seeing strong business interest in switching to 100% clean energy. The 54 companies who are members of the campaign will voluntarily disclose their renewable energy targets, purchases and production to CDP. This information will encapsulate all of these companies’ commitments, achievements and best practice, and create a knowledge base that will help drive corporate adoption of renewables forward.
Since 2014, CDP has run the RE100 Technical Advisory Group, a team of industry experts from several of CDP’s partner organizations: Center for Resource Solutions, RECS International, Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewables Center, World Resources Institute, US Environmental Protection Agency and WWF. This group helps RE100 and its member companies to set criteria for credibility and transparency, and to identify and pursue best practice in renewable energy procurement.
Three members of the RE100 Technical Advisory Group members, Jared Braslawsky, Todd Jones and Mary Sotos, have written a new briefing paper, “Making credible claims”, which is all about credible renewable energy usage.
This paper, to be published in March, fills in an important niche in industry knowledge, and specifies technical criteria for companies to follow when they wish to claim consumption of renewable energy – a concept that is broader than the more common GHG emissions claims.
On March 8 the technical team of RE100 will run a session at the RECS Market Meeting Conference in Amsterdam. Mary Sotos of the WRI will be presenting the “Making credible claims” briefing, Philippe Le Gall, Sustainability Systems & Reporting Manager at Nestlé, will speak about Nestlé’s journey toward 100% renewable electricity, and I will focus on the important innovations introduced in reporting practices and the role of the RE100 Technical Advisory Group in identifying and promoting best practice.
If you can’t make it to Amsterdam, you can still follow the conversation on Twitter with #RMM16.