More Fortune 500 Companies Pledge 100% Renewables

Companies including Nike, Procter & Gamble, Asda-owner Walmart and Starbucks have pledged to use 100% renewable electricity.

RE100 was launched one year ago during a week of events to promote climate change in New York.

The nine new RE100 members join the likes of IKEA, Unilever and Marks & Spencer, which have all previously committed to sourcing all their power from renewables. “Today these companies are signalling loud and clear to COP21 negotiators that forward-thinking businesses back renewables and want to see a strong climate deal in Paris”, he said in an interview with The Guardian. “We understand the intrinsic link between a healthy environment and human health”, commented Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky, whose company aims to go 100% renewable by 2050.

Goals for achieving 100 per cent renewables vary widely, according to RE100, which is organised by The Climate Group and CDP, formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project.

That these Fortune 500 firms have thrown their significant weight behind RE100, a global campaign to cut down on CO2 emissions by turning to renewable sources of energy, suggests a major shift in corporations’ awareness of their responsibility to lead their respective industries away from carbon. Its most notable innovation is Flyknit, which Nike says has an average of 80 percent less production waste than its typical products.

“Microsoft believes that companies-and particularly information technology companies-have an important role to play in reducing carbon emissions”, stated chief environmental strategist Rob Bernard about the company’s Climate Neutral Now commitment. The company is aiming to become carbon neutral by 2018.

To date, national plans submitted for the upcoming Paris United Nations climate negotiations show that the countries remain far from reaching a goal of limiting temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

With support from more companies each day, and with governments and religious leaders such as Pope Francis helping spread the gospel, the shared global responsibility to tackle climate change is clearly gaining momentum ahead of COP21.