Today at Climate Week NYC, Johnson & Johnson joined RE100 – an ambitious global campaign led by The Climate Group in partnership with CDP, to engage, support and showcase influential businesses committed to 100% renewable electricity – along with leading US-companies Goldman Sachs, NIKE, Procter & Gamble, Salesforce, Starbucks, Steelcase, Voya Financial and Walmart.
Jed Richardson is the Global Energy Director for Johnson & Johnson, responsible for the enterprise energy program strategy and implementation. Here, he talks about Johnson & Johnson’s bold new greenhouse gas emissions and renewable energy goals.
Being a parent of four young children, I am inspired to leave the next generation a healthy environment to live and work.
As the lead for the Global Energy Program at Johnson & Johnson, I am motivated and inspired each day by the global impact we can make given the size and expanse of our businesses.
The great thing about working for Johnson & Johnson is that Our Credo provides us with a clear and compelling reminder that we must be good citizens in the global community. This includes protecting the environment and ensuring the responsible use of natural resources.
Operating over 200 global businesses across Johnson & Johnson requires a continuous flow of raw material, fuel, electricity and many other resources to bring our products to market. Each day, we work to continuously improve our energy efficiency, lower our environmental footprint and partner on innovative approaches. I can tell you first hand that we take this work to heart.
As the world’s largest and most broadly-based health care company, our mission is to help people live longer, healthier and happier lives. And we understand the intrinsic link between a healthy environment and human health.
Johnson & Johnson began its formal energy management program more than 30 years ago and we continue to strive to be an industry leader in energy efficiency and clean energy.
In 2000, we established our first enterprise-wide, public commitment to reduce CO2 emissions. After achieving this and subsequent goals, we are proud to officially announce new energy commitments.
Johnson & Johnson is publicly committing to two new energy and climate goals based on the latest climate science. Across Johnson & Johnson, we aim to:
- Reduce absolute carbon emissions 20% by 2020 and 80% by 2050i
- Produce/Procure 20% of electricity from clean/renewable sources by 2020 and aspire to power all of our facilities with renewable energy by 2050
We are well on our way to living up to this commitment. In fact, we’ve already initiated a number of changes. In the past year alone, we’ve increased on-site renewable and clean-technology energy capacity by installing two wind turbines on our properties in Cork Ireland, two fuel cells on our properties in California and solar arrays on our properties in Puerto Rico.
In terms of innovative partnerships, we’ve participated as a signature on the Corporate Renewable Energy Buyers Principles launched by the World Wildlife Fund and World Resources Institute in the US, and joined the Rocky Mountain Institutes' Business Renewables Center which are both focused on resolving challenges to give corporations better access to renewable energy options.
Today, in concurrence with Climate Week NYC, I’m also very proud to share that we will be joining RE100 to broadly announce our aspiration to power all of our facilities with renewable energy.
We are happy to be the first health care company to join the ranks of other prominent businesses that have made this pledge. Together, we believe business can play an important and influential role in lowering carbon emissions so we can leave a better, healthier world for the next generation.
By Jed Richardson is the Global Energy Director for Johnson & Johnson
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i Absolute Carbon Emissions include Scope 1 and Scope 2 sources, baseline year is 2010ii Renewable energy generated includes solar photovoltaic, geothermal, and wind.iii Clean energy generated includes cogeneration systems & fuel cells