“Project Decarbonize”: A Snapshot of How Corporations Are Bending the Curve on Emissions

Oct 28 2024  |  5 min read

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Bending the curve on carbon emissions is the most pressing challenge of our time – but the needs and emissions of companies vary widely by sector and even by company. It’s never been more important for companies to understand the breadth of available solutions and be able to learn from their peers. That’s why MN8 collaborated with Trellis Group to survey companies across a range of sectors, and offer up a cross-section of the multifaceted approaches they are employing to reduce emissions in a new report, “Project Decarbonize: The Current State of Corporate Renewable Energy Adoption.”

Trellis Group conducted interviews with 21 companies from the technology, food and beverage, consumer packaged goods, retail and finance sectors, from brands like Adobe, 3M, Cisco, Whirlpool, Citi and Brown-Forman. Our joint report with Trellis Group shares trends in renewable energy adoption and decarbonization and the range of strategies being employed and progress made by the interviewed companies.

The top 4 takeaways from the report:

• Companies today are taking a multifaceted approach to sourcing clean energy;
• For process heat- and energy-intensive heavy industries, companies need to be ready to invest in and pioneer new technologies and process to reduce hard-to-abate emissions;
• New regulatory frameworks implemented in California, Europe and elsewhere are creating urgency and opportunities for companies to understand and reduce their emissions, including Scope 3;
• Companies are already understanding and starting to reap some of the long-term benefits of decarbonization — reduced energy costs, fewer carbon-related liabilities on the balance sheet, increased customer satisfaction, enhanced brand reputation and regulatory compliance — if they can navigate

The goals are ambitious and the heat is on – but progressing towards them takes a full toolset

As we’ve noted on our blog before, demand for clean energy is at an all-time high, driven by a mix of opportunities — falling costs of renewables and batteries for storage and electric vehicles, and external pressures — regulatory pressure, investor demands and consumer expectations. Clean energy supply is often snapped up and under contract a year or more before the project is operational.

Why the rapid pace? Because there’s been huge growth in the adoption of science-based targets (SBTs) for reducing emissions – over 6,000 SBTs set by over 3,700 companies to date – and more than 450 companies have committed to transitioning to using 100% renewable energy as part of the RE100 coalition.

To meet those goals for clean energy adoption, the current RE100 members will need to purchase a staggering amount of additional clean electricity — 301 TWh by 2030, or enough to power 16.3 million homes’ energy use for one year. With that huge demand, over 220 RE100 members currently rely heavily on certificates — as opposed to PPAs or onsite generation — and many operate on dirtier grids where renewable energy availability and procurement is difficult.

While leading-edge technology companies like Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft are pursuing advanced sourcing goals like matching clean energy to consumption on an hourly basis, most RE100 companies are far from reaching even 100% annual clean energy – as a whole, the RE100 member companies collectively consumed or offset with clean energy 42% of electricity consumption. A range of RE100 companies only plan to be 100% renewable by 2050.

What that means for companies is that they need to understand the mechanisms available to them to access clean energy, and develop a strategy tapping into as many of them as needed to meet their goals – which could include a blend of power purchase agreements (PPA), virtual power purchase agreements (VPPA), renewable energy certificates (REC) and on-site generation.

Download the “Project Decarbonize” report now and learn more about how 21 companies are approaching these challenges!