By
Godfrey Benjamin
April 26th, 2024
IBM has committed to using 75% renewable energy-powered electricity by 2025 and 90% renewable energy electricity by 2030.
Leading American multinational tech company IBM (NYSE: IBM) has announced its intention to join Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) in preventing climate changes and making our planet safer and better by getting rid of its planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions from its operations by 2030. According to the announcement, this new plan is known as “Net Zero.” This means that the number of greenhouse gases released into the environment is equal to the amount removed by the company.
While some tech companies have hugged the headlines with their commitments towards a green environment lately, IBM, through its pledge is not only looking to capture carbon dioxide, but also prevent these emissions. As such, to achieve this noble dream, the tech company has set sight on drastically reducing its gas emissions by 65% in 2025.
IBM Climate Initiatives: Net Zero Goals
The firm has also committed to using 75% renewable energy-powered electricity by 2025 and 90% renewable energy electricity by 2030. At the same time, the computing giant says it is going to use technologies to remove greenhouse gases that is equal to its “residual emissions.” It also pledged to do “all it can across its operations” to further prevent polluting the environment.
IBM’s new commitment towards climate change is in line with its previous works on the environment. The company was one of the founding members of the Climate Leadership Council. This council is an international policy institute that advocates for institutions responsible for carbon emissions to pay a fee that would be returned to citizens as cash payments. The firm has also consistently disclosed its carbon emissions since 1995.
Arvind Krishna, the firm’s CEO, said he was proud of the firm’s new commitment towards reducing emissions. Wayne S. Balta, the Chief Sustainability Officer of IBM also mentioned that the new development was not going to affect the profitability of the firm. Instead, he says that “innovating to address climate change and other aspects of environmental sustainability represents a business opportunity that also helps the planet. Good for the economy, good for the environment. That’s the essence of sustainability.”
IBM vs Amazon vs Microsoft
Last year October, the computing giant announced that it was going to split into two public companies that would focus on cloud computing and Artificial intelligence (AI). The firm went on to state that its more popular IT services would continue its operations under a new name.
This foray into cloud computing and AI is going to be pitting the firm against other tech companies like Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Amazon who are market leaders in the field. Notably, cloud computing is well recognized to be one of the ways through which energy is being depleted across the world. A report by the International Energy Association in 2018 said that data centers account for 1% of all the electricity use in the world, meaning these centers depend majorly on energy.
The three companies have however committed towards climate change plans. Microsoft has reached net zero emissions in 2012 but its pledge focuses on driving the development of technologies that suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Amazon, on the other hand, has set 2040 as the year when it could reach net zero emissions. However, the company’s gas emission level has continued to grow as its businesses expand.