19 Oct 2015 -- Today, IBM attended the White House Summit on Climate and the Road through Paris. The Summit gathered leaders from the government, private sector, academic, technical and scientific communities to focus on cross-sector efforts to tackle the climate change challenge here in the United States as well as on a global scale. Specifically, the event focused on how to further efforts around carbon mitigation, sustainability, and resiliency, as well as how technologies are emerging to support and scale these efforts.
At the event, IBM announced that it supports the American Business Act on Climate Pledge, joining 80 companies from across the American economy to demonstrate an ongoing commitment to climate action.
American Business Act on Climate Pledge:
We applaud the growing number of countries that have already set ambitious targets for climate action. In this context, we support the conclusion of a climate change agreement in Paris that takes a strong step forward toward a low-carbon, sustainable future.
We recognize that delaying action on climate change will be costly in economic and human terms, while accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy will produce multiple benefits with regard to sustainable economic growth, public health, resilience to natural disasters, and the health of the global environment.
IBM puts forth its pledges as follows:
- Reduce CO2 emissions associated with IBM's energy consumption 35 percent by year-end 2020 against base year 2005 adjusted for acquisitions and divestitures
- Procure electricity from renewable sources for 20 percent of IBM's annual electricity consumption by 2020
- Achieve annual energy conservation savings equal to 3.5 percent of IBM's total energy use
IBM has been a global leader regarding energy efficiency and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions for decades. For example:
- Between 1990 and 2014, IBM saved 6.8 million megawatt hours of electricity consumption, avoided 4.2 million metric tons of CO2 emissions, and saved $550 million through energy conservation actions.
- We have deployed new I/T solutions developed by IBM for managing the energy efficiency of buildings and data centers. These solutions have typically driven 10 percent reductions in energy consumption for the systems they monitor.
- In 2014, we used 683,000 megawatt hours of renewable electricity, representing 14.2 percent of IBM's global electricity consumption and a 17.9 percent increase from 2013.
- We have already reduced IBM's operational CO2 emissions over 25 percent against a 2005 baseline.
For more on IBM's energy conservation and climate protection commitment and initiatives, visit our Climate protection page or the Energy conservation and climate protection section of our latest Corporate Responsibility Report.
