Business Action on Climate Change

There are hundreds of companies that have committed themselves to achieving ambitious sustainability goals. Here are five corporate leaders who stand apart. Together these five companies represent $1,062,338,000,000 in revenue, which if they together formed a country would be the 19th-largest economy in the world. This list of companies leading the sustainability movement is excerpted from the Fortune 25 list:

Apple is also committed to going 100 percent renewable and they are already well on their way. Their data centers around the world run on 100 percent clean energy.  Overall, 93 percent of their energy came from renewable sources in 2015. In Singapore, they power their facilities with a 32-megawatt solar project spread over more than 800 rooftops. In China, they’re adding 170 megawatts of solar to begin offsetting the energy used to make their products.

Ford Motor company has engaged a raft of sustainability initiatives including emissions reduction and other climate change fighting action. They are also focused on smart mobility, water stewardship and human rights. 

Hewlett-Packard made strong progress on its GHG emissions reduction goals across the value chain in 2015. In 2016 the company pledged to get all of its energy from renewables in global operations. Its interim target is 40 percent by 2020. The company also plans to reduce the GHG emissions intensity of HP’s product portfolio by 25 percent by 2020, compared with 2010.

Microsoft is well on its way to achieving corporate carbon neutrality. Its data centers will get half their power from renewable sources wind, solar and hydropower by the end of 2018. In the next few years they will get more than 60 percent of their energy from renewable sources and they will not stop there.

Wal-Mart has been engaged in sustainability for more than a decade. Their goals for 2025 include zero waste to landfill in Canada, Japan, U.K and the U.S. They intend to get half of their energy from renewable souces. Perhaps most importantly they have set science-based emissions reduction targets. They intend to increase their sales of locally grown produce by 100 percent and they want to expand sustainable sourcing to cover 20 key commodities, including bananas, grapes, coffee and tea. They use 100 percent recyclable packaging for all private-label brands.