Nearly 40% of Fortune 500 companies are collectively saving US$3.7 billion per year by setting targets for renewable energy procurement, according to the Power Forward 3.0report released last week by WWF, Ceres, Calvert Research & Management, and the Carbon Disclosure Project.
“We’re not talking about anecdotal information anymore,” said Marty Spitzer, WWF’s Washington-based senior director of climate and renewable energy. “We’re talking about large, large savings.”
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About 63% of Fortune 100 companies now have renewable energy targets, Renewable Energy World reports, as do 44% of the 100 smallest in the Fortune 500, up from 25% in 2014.
“Potential savings and sustainability goals prompted corporations to buy almost 3.7 GW of power generated by clean energy projects in 2015, and another 2.5 GW last year, almost all from wind and solar,” REWorld notes, citing Bloomberg New Energy Finance. And while the initial impetus came from IT giants like Google/Alphabet, Apple, and Salesforce, “it’s no longer just tech companies.”
The 190 firms in the study “reported emission reductions equivalent to mothballing 45 coal-fired power plants for a year, according to the report. It also found that 23 of Fortune 500 companies have 100% renewable-energy targets.”
