The commitment has been co-founded by Amazon and Global Optimism to meet the Paris Agreement 10 years early
Amazon and Global Optimism have announced the second major signatory to The Climate Pledge—Infosys— making a commitment to meet the Paris Agreement 10 years early. The Climate Pledge calls on new signatories to be net zero carbon across their businesses by 2040—a decade ahead of the Paris Accord’s goal of 2050.
Infosys and other companies that sign The Climate Pledge agree to: Measure and report greenhouse gas emissions on a regular basis; Implement decarbonisation strategies in line with the Paris Agreement through real business changes and innovations, including efficiency improvements, renewable energy, materials reductions, and other carbon emission elimination strategies; Neutralise any remaining emissions with additional, quantifiable, real, permanent, and socially-beneficial offsets to achieve net zero annual carbon emissions by 2040.
“Infosys is showing bold leadership by signing up to The Climate Pledge and committing to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement ten years early. When significant companies like Infosys join The Climate Pledge, they send an important signal to the market that it’s time to invest in low carbon products and services,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and CEO.
“At Infosys, we recognised climate change as a serious threat to our planet early on, and realised our responsibility as a corporate institution to mitigate its impact by taking concrete steps,” said Salil Parekh, CEO and MD, Infosys. “We believe that the way in which global organisations responded to this crisis would play a big role in defining how the rest of the world takes up the cause. As a result, we committed to climate action over a decade ago, and since then, the impact on climate and environment have been important considerations in the decisions we make as an organisation.”
Christiana Figueres, the UN’s former climate change chief and founding partner of Global Optimism, said the Paris Agreement set out a unifying roadmap for all countries and all people to address the climate crisis by taking action. “The IPCC has informed us that we cannot warm the planet beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius. By committing to achieve net zero emissions by 2040, Infosys is not just making a statement of commitment to the future, it is committing to significant actions and investments that will create jobs, spur innovation, regenerate the natural environment and help consumers to buy better in the short term. This is what leadership looks like in resetting the global economy,” she said.
Infosys, a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting, made a voluntary commitment in 2011, long before the Paris Agreement, to become carbon neutral and is on track to achieve it well ahead of 2040. Infosys is the first signatory to RE100 from India and is committed to completely transitioning to renewable power for its electricity requirements. Infosys has already invested in 60 MW of captive solar photovoltaic capacity and nearly 45% of its electricity is coming from renewable sources. Infosys is committed to transitioning to 100% renewable energy.
Infosys was one of the first few companies to place an internal price on carbon. It also has a highly successful energy efficiency program that helped the company reduce its per-capita electricity consumption by 55% since 2008. As part of its path to climate neutrality, Infosys has made significant investments to a portfolio of community-based emission reduction projects to help meet its net zero carbon goal. These projects not only address climate change, but also benefit over 100,000 families today, contributing to the socio-economic development of rural India.
By joining the Climate Pledge and agreeing to decarbonise on a faster time horizon, Infosys will play a critical role in stimulating investment in the development of low carbon products and services that will be required to help companies meet the pledge. Amazon previously announced an order of 100,000 electric delivery vehicles from Rivian, the largest order ever of electric vehicles, with vans starting to deliver packages to customers in 2021. Amazon plans to have 10,000 of the new electric vehicles on the road as early as 2022 and all 100,000 vehicles on the road by 2030 – saving millions of metric tons of carbon per year by 2030. Amazon plans to announce many more signatories throughout 2020.
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