Building on my earlier post, I have now found over 30 companies that have made commitments that will reduce embodied carbon in the Built Environment.
These companies within the manufacturing, construction and property sector have made public commitments to reduce the impacts of their manufacturing processes, or the impacts of their products – both of which should reduce the embodied carbon of construction products, or have committed to reduce the embodied carbon of the buildings they commission, design, build or operate or are involved with.
Many companies have made pledges over and above those listed here, for example on water or operational office emissions, but I have excluded them as they do not directly relate to the impact on embodied carbon.
I am sure there are many more companies not listed here, please let me know via comments and I will update the list. Pledges taken from UKGBC or the Whitehouse’ American Business Act on Climate Pledge if no other link provided.
Akzo Nobel
We are committed to increasing our resource efficiency across the value chain to reduce our environmental footprint and to create more value from fewer resources. We target 25-30% improvements in resource efficiency and energy use across the entire value chain by 2020 (measured by cradle to grave carbon footprint reduction).
ALCOA
Building on our existing global commitment to reduce GHG intensity by 30% by 2020 (vs. 2005 baseline), Alcoa pledges to:
– Reduce absolute GHG emissions by 50% in the U.S. (vs. 2005 baseline) by 2025,
– Deploy our full range of innovations to develop materials, products and technologies that move us toward a low carbon sustainable future, and
– By 2025, demonstrate a net reduction of GHG emissions from the use of our products equal to three times the emissions created by their production.
Autodesk
Building on Autodesk’s long-term commitment to support and equip designers and engineers to help solve climate change while meeting our own science-based greenhouse gas reduction target, we pledge to:
– Power our business and growing cloud services with 100% renewable electricity by 2020 as part of our continuing science-based greenhouse gas reduction commitment
BHP Billiton
We put forth our pledges as follows:
– Require our Businesses to identify, evaluate and implement suitable GHG reduction opportunities, including during project design and equipment selection.
– Build on our continuing commitment to limit or reduce GHG emissions, such as our current target of limiting our FY2017 emissions below our FY2006 emissions baseline.
– Transparent reporting of performance.
British Land
By 2020 we will deliver a 15% reduction in landlord embodied carbon intensity for projects over £50m against 2015 per m² .
Carillion
Carillion are working alongside other industry leaders, companies and government authorities to achieve effective, lasting carbon reduction at scale. We all committed to cut 24 million tonnes of carbon from UK infrastructure contracts by 2050 under the Infrastructure Carbon Review.
Danfoss
Danfoss has taken significant measures to help reduce the impact of our own buildings and operations, and, since 2007, we have decreased our energy use by 30%. To further build on these long-term and ongoing efforts, Danfoss pledges to continue our focus on improving the energy efficiency in our buildings and manufacturing processes and increase our utilization of low-carbon energy resources in order to, by 2030:
– Reduce by 50% the energy intensity in our buildings and processes as compared to 2007
– Reduce by 50% the CO2 intensity in consumed energy as compared to 2007
– We also remain committed to investing in the manufacture of new products that use low-GWP refrigerants and that will allow others to reduce their carbon emissions.
DuPont
The following 2020 Sustainability Goals continue and renew our focus on reducing our operational footprint in the areas of energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, waste, and water use:
– We will reduce our non-renewable energy use by 10% per price-adjusted dollar revenue, compared to a baseline of 2010.
– We will further reduce our greenhouse gas emissions intensity by 7% from a 2015 baseline.
eTool
We provide Life Cycle Assessment consultancy and software fully compliant with EN 15978 and recently BRE IMPACT. In 4 years we have facilitated savings of over 460,000 tonnes of operational and embodied CO2e across a broad range of building and infrastructure projects.
Feilden Clegg Bradley
We pledge to continue its work in low energy design and in particular:
– To examine ways of reducing to embodied carbon in our buildings.
Greengage
We will provide bespoke advice to each and every client to enable them to understand what they can do to achieve meaningful long term action against climate change. We will focus on the three key areas of energy management, embodied carbon reduction and climate change adaptation and mitigation.
HAB
We will also target significant reductions in embodied carbon in construction.
HS2
We commit to minimising the carbon footprint of HS2 as far as practicable and to delivering low carbon long distance journeys that are supported by low carbon energy. To support this we will set carbon targets and work with our supply chain to manage and minimise carbon emissions associated with the construction and operation of HS2.
Hanson Heidelberg Cement
We have targets to reduce carbon emissions by 10 per cent and energy emissions by 5 per cent per tonne of product by 2020 based on a 2010 baseline.
Ingersoll Rand
Ingersoll Rand pledges to:
– Reduce emissions from our products and our operations by over 20 MMT (metric tons) CO2e by 2020 and expect to cut 50 MMT CO2e by 2030.
Interface
Interface established its Mission Zero® promise to eliminate any negative impact the company has on the environment by 2020 and, supported by our entrepreneurial spirit, we’re well on our way to achieving it.
Building on Interface’s commitment to become a sustainable enterprise and reduce its Greenhouse Gas emissions, we commit to achieve the following by 2020:
– Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90%, compared to a 1996 baseline.
– Operate our global manufacturing sites with 100% renewable energy.
– Reduce the carbon footprint of our carpet tiles by 80% compared to a 1996 baseline.
– Offer verified climate neutral products to customers across our global business.
– Continue to develop long term business plans that align with the de-carbonization necessary to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees centigrade.
“If we’re successful, we’ll spend the rest of our days harvesting yesteryear’s carpets and other petrochemically derived products, and recycling them into new materials; and converting sunlight into energy; with zero scrap going to the landfill and zero emissions into the ecosystem. And we’ll be doing well … very well … by doing good. That’s the vision.” Ray Anderson, 1997.
Kingspan
We commit to achieving net zero energy across all sites by 2020, with an interim target of 50% by 2016.
Lafarge Holcim globally
We will continue with our mission to cut our net CO2 emissions by 40% per ton of cement by 2030 (vs 1990). We will continue to develop and market innovative products and services to prevent 10 million tons of CO2 being released every year from buildings and infrastructure.
Laing O’Rourke
We will produce independently-verified carbon footprints for our main off-site manufactured (pre-cast) products by 2020 and we will reduce our direct carbon emissions by 50% by 2020 (compared to 2009 baseline).
Legrand NA
Legrand NA, the leading provider of products and systems for electrical installations and information networks wherever people live and work, is committed to integrating sustainability into the way we do business. As part of our efforts to reduce the environmental impacts of our operations, we became Challenge Partner to the DOE Better Buildings, Better Plants initiative in 2011, pledging to reduce its energy intensity across 14 US sites by 25% within ten years over a 2009 baseline. We exceeded this goal in 2012, achieving a 28% reduction.
Subsequently, Legrand NA reset its baseline to 2012 and has pledged to achieve an additional 25% reduction in energy intensity by 2022. The cumulative reduction in energy intensity since 2009 now exceeds 38%.
Marshalls
This policy applies to all Marshalls businesses and covers our direct and indirect emissions, including our supply chain. The policy requires Marshalls to:
• Reduce our corporate Green House Gas (GHG) emissions by at least 15% by 2012, 26% by 2020 and 80% by 2050. These reductions are measured against a 1990 baseline.
• Begin this process with a 2,000 tCO2e pa reduction year on year initially.
• Reduce specific emissions (in terms of kgCO2e/t of finished product) by 3% pa.
Mitsubishi Electric
We will aim to reduce CO2 emissions from product usage by 30% (2001 baseline) and CO2 emissions from production by 30% (1991 baseline), both by 2021.
National Grid
National Grid is an international electricity and gas company based in the UK and northeastern US. We play a vital role in connecting millions of people safely, reliably, and efficiently to the energy they use.
In support of our continued commitment to address climate change, National Grid pledges the following:
– Reduce GHG emissions 80% by 2050, from our 1990 base line, and 45% by 2020
– As a founding member of One Future, a natural gas industry sector wide initiative, support its goal to reduce methane emissions across the natural gas industry to no more than 1 percent of national gross production by 2025.
Rio Tinto
Rio Tinto pledges to:
– Set quantified emissions intensity reduction goals. In 2008 we set a target of ten per cent reduction in total greenhouse gas emissions intensity to be achieved by 2015. At the end of 2014, we had achieved a reduction of 18 per cent compared with 2008. We will set a new emissions intensity target by the end of 2015.
– Work to reduce our emissions intensity
– Seek a substantial decarbonisation of our business by 2050.
Schneider Electric
We put forth our pledges as follows:
– Achieve 10 percent energy savings by the end of 2017 by reducing the company’s energy intensity
– 120,000 tons of CO2 avoided through end- environment.
Siemens USA
We put forth our pledge as follows:
– Siemens pledges to cut our global carbon footprint by 50% by 2020 and to reduce our net carbon emissions to zero by 2030.
SKANSKA
Our Journey to Deep Green™ has put climate and resource considerations at the heart of our business planning since 2010. Through our Journey to Deep Green™ we define Green and Deep Green Targets in our business plans.
Sturgis Carbon Profiling
We will continue to provide leadership to educate, inform and encourage those we work with to deliver truly low carbon buildings through ‘Whole Life’, ie both Embodied and Operational emissions reductions. We will also work to deliver a UK wide implementation plan for delivering Whole Life Carbon reductions in accordance with BS EN 15978 by mid 2017.
Tata Steel
As proud members of ULCOS (Ultra-Low CO2 Steelmaking Partnership) which has the stated goal of developing technologies capable of reducing the CO2 emissions of steel production by 50% by 2050, and as host to its leading pilot project, Hisarna, we will continue to invest in research & development in the search for ways to reduce CO2 emissions through breakthrough technology.
Willmott Dixon
Reduce carbon intensity by 50% by 2020, compared with 2010.
Yorkshire Water
Yorkshire Water has recently endorsed the Government’s Infrastructure Carbon Review and, in doing so, made a number of commitments to reduce carbon in the construction, operation and maintenance of our assets. One of these commitments is that by 2020 we aspire to be halving the carbon emissions embodied in the new assets we build, compared to a 2015 baseline. We believe that this will not only reduce carbon but also help us to find new cost efficiencies.
ConstructionLCA 
