While many companies have trained their sights on climate change in recent years, IBM espouses a broader set of objectives in a “systems management” approach to environmental and safety issues. “Many people see climate change as the entirety of the environment and inadvertently link all environmental issues to it. That’s a mistake,” said IBM’s chief sustainability officer Wayne S. Balta. “If we focus on that one aspect entirely and avoid air pollution, water pollution and many other essential imperatives, we’re doing a disservice to our communities and our planet.”
In 2021, IBM announced 21 comprehensive, voluntary goals that address the ways in which IBM intersects with the environment. They include metrics relating to biodiversity, water usage, CO2 emissions, product and waste recycling, and renewable energy, among others. The company has pledged to improve average data center cooling efficiency and implement more than 3,000 energy conservation projects by 2025, and to procure 75% of electricity from renewable sources by 2025 and 90% by 2030. IBM has vowed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 65% below 2010 levels by 2025. It also plans to reduce water withdrawals in water-stressed regions, procure paper and paper/wood-based packaging from sustainably managed forests, and plant 50 pollinator gardens by 2023 to encourage biodiversity.
Because IBM operates a vast global supply chain, some of its most powerful policies involve setting standards for partners. In 2010, the company required all first-tier suppliers to maintain an environmental management system, set goals and publicly disclose results. More recently, it announced intentions to require suppliers in emissions-intensive sectors to set emissions-reduction goals that align with the scientific recommendations from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to limit Earth’s warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Further, the company has pledged to host annual supplier symposiums to celebrate their successes.
As a global company operating in 170 countries with clients that touch nearly every industry, IBM has extended its environmental efforts from community programs all the way to planetary initiatives, just as Thomas J. Watson Jr. called for decades earlier. “A more modern digital economy can and should lead to a more sustainable economy,” said IBM chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna.