In April 2002, IBM joined the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Climate Leaders (link resides outside of ibm.com) program, which challenges businesses to set aggressive, corporate-wide greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals that exceed business-as-usual performance in any company's industry sector. As part of its participation in Climate Leaders, IBM is pursuing two emissions reduction goals that cover virtually all direct and indirect IBM greenhouse gas emissions:
- Achieve an absolute 10 percent reduction in PFC emissions from IBM's semiconductor manufacturing processes by 2005, using 2000 as the base year.
- Achieve average annual CO2 emissions reductions equivalent to 4 percent of the emissions associated with IBM's annual fuel and electricity use over the six-year period from 2000 through 2005. IBM intends to achieve these reductions through further energy conservation actions.
IBM surpassed both of these goals. The company achieved an average annual CO2 emissions reduction equal to 6.2% of the emissions associated with IBM's actual annual energy use. This equates to 162,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions per year from 2000 through 2005 versus the 4% goal. Regarding the PFC emissions reduction goal, at the end of 2005 IBM had achieved a 58% reduction, significantly exceeding the 10 percent goal.
The company has now set a second generation goal under Climate Leaders, a combined 7% absolute reduction in GHG emissions by 2012, using 2005 as the base year.