87 companies valued at around USD 2.3 trillion are now part of the UN Global Compact’s campaign on Business Ambition for 1.5°C - Our Only Future. They have committed to set science-based targets to limit global warming below 1.5°C or reach net zero emissions by 2050.
Ørsted, one of the world’s five largest renewable energy companies, joined the campaign with updated reduction targets for its business and wider footprint that were announced in August 2019. Carbon intensity of Ørsted’s energy generation decreased by 83% in mid-2019, from a 2006 baseline.
“Ørsted supports the ambition of halving global carbon emissions by 2030 to limit global warming to 1.5°C,” says Rasmus Skov, Head of Global PA & sustainable solutions at Ørsted. “We’re taking climate action by investing exclusively in green energy and will generate essentially carbon free energy by 2025.”
Ørsted was one of the first energy companies to set a science-based target for reducing emissions from power and heat generation, and has the following targets:
By phasing out coal and increasing the build out of green energy, the company is fully on track to meet its scope 1 and 2 targets. To meet the scope 3 target, Ørsted will gradually reduce its natural gas sourcing portfolios, and closely engage with suppliers to reduce emissions from the goods and services it sources, in particular for construction of wind farms.
The Global Compact has highlighted Ørsted as a best practice case among companies who are cutting emissions aligned with climate science.
You can read the case - “It only takes a decade” – in the 1.5°C Business Leadership report, which was launched at the recent UN Climate Action Summit.