Dutch technology company and RE100 corporate partner Philips has committed to reducing its carbon footprint to zero by 2020.
Philips has also announced it will use 100% of the electricity for its North American operations from renewables by the end of 2016, by purchasing 250,000 MWh of electricity per year from the Hidalgo Wind Farm in Texas, in a major step towards achieving its carbon neutral goal.
Making the announcements at COP21, the business has shown world leaders gathered in Paris that it’s serious about taking climate actions and wants to see its bold targets matched by international policies.
Philips expects that by 2015 it has already reduced its carbon footprint by 40% since 2007, but wants to accelerate its emissions reductions and achieve carbon neutrality in the next five years. The company plans to meet this target by driving down energy consumption in its operations, with a focus on reducing energy use, logistics and business travel.
The company is making the commitment to further its RE100 target of powering all global operations with renewable electricity by 2020. Philips has taken an aggressive approach to achieving this goal and has increased use of renewables from 8% to 55% in six years (2008 – 2015).
Speaking on Energy Day at COP21, Eric Rondolat, Chief Executive Officer of Philips Lighting, called on leaders to set more aggressive targets to tackle climate change: “As it stands, we’ve reached the climate change checkout and all the contributions from around the world have proved insufficient to prevent a potentially catastrophic rise in global temperatures. The world must set more ambitious goals to improve energy efficiency.
“Faster adoption of LED lighting, and a drive to renovate existing city infrastructure and greater use of solar-powered LED lighting would have a huge impact.”
Philips Lighting has worked in close partnership with The Climate Group for the past two years to run a global consultation with cities and municipalities to identify and address the remaining barriers to a scale-up of LED street lighting.