Global warming can be reduced, but it requires strict greenhouse gas emissions reduction policies. In order to reach this goal, 114 companies across the world have joined the Science-Based Targets initiative, pledging to set targets to reduce their emissions, based on what has been deemed necessary by the scientific community in order to combat climate change.
The project was presented at LPAA Business, an event organised by the UN Global Compact’s Caring for Climate as part of the recently held Paris climate conference (COP21). A joint effort of the Carbon Disclosure Project, the World Resources Institute, WWF and the UN Global Compact, Science-Based Targets involves companies that have combined annual emissions of 476 million tonnes of CO2, the equivalent of the emissions in South Africa or Mexico. Ten companies have already had their targets approved including: Enel, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Dell, General Mills, Kellogg, NRG Energy, Procter & Gamble, Sony and Thalys. Combined, these companies will reduce their emissions from operations by 799 tonnes of CO2 by the year 2050, and their indirect emissions throughout their value chains.
Enel has pledged to reduce its CO2 emissions per kWh by 25 percent by 2020, from a 2007 base-year. The target also includes plans to decommission 23 Italian thermoelectric power plants which are no longer active, for a total of 13 GW – a step toward the long-term achievement of carbon neutrality by 2050.
‘As a global company in the energy sector, the Enel group is ready to change its traditional business activities and take on a leading role in the transformation of energy infrastructures’, declared Enel CEO Francesco Starace. ‘Enel expects to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, by committing to the required decarbonisation levels to limit global warming. We are therefore implementing ambitious and efficient environmental policies, thus accelerating the transition to a smarter economy powered by renewable energy’.
The complete list of companies participating in the initiative is available on the project's website.