With the arrival of a new decade comes the momentum to turn words into action around climate change. The International Living Future Institute (ILFI) created the Zero Carbon (ZC) certification as a way for teams to fully decarbonize their buildings and meet their climate action goals. While this is no small feat, we have now seen several instances of corporations that have risen up to the challenge.

Large companies are leading the charge in setting ambitious carbon reduction targets to display their commitment to improving their operational sustainability. A number of those commitments are as follows:

  • Salesforce: reducing over 100 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 (with pursuit of ILFI’s ZC Certification), including initiatives to reduce supply chain emissions by 50%, achieve 100% renewable energy, and invest over $10M in climate entrepreneurs and start-ups; 
  • Starbucks: multi-decade goal to be resource positive, including concrete goals for 2030 involving a 50% reduction in carbon emissions, waste production, and water impact;
  • Microsoft: carbon negative by 2030 and offsetting all historical carbon by 2050 (including the pursuit of ILFI’s ZC Certification); 
  • Amazon: carbon neutral by 2040, seeking to reduce the impacts of their operations and buildings and looking to operate using 100% renewable energy by 2030.  

Publicly setting these ambitious targets is an excellent starting point on the path to a more sustainable future and allows these organizations to be held accountable to their reduction goals. Next, companies must create action plans to translate these targets into achievable actions using quantifiable metrics. Those plans should include strategies and processes that result in a fully decarbonized building portfolio, such as ILFI’s Zero Carbon certification. This program requires teams to reduce, disclose, and offset both their embodied and operational carbon.

If you’re interested in how Zero Carbon certification helps organizations show they have achieved a fully decarbonized building stock within their portfolios, be sure to check out the Zero Carbon sessions at our upcoming Living Future UnConference (now online!) in May. Sustainability professionals from Google and Microsoft will lead a session on reducing operational and embodied carbon, and our Zero Carbon at Scale session will focus on how Salesforce is filling an industry gap in embodied carbon measurement.

With multiple available paths to certification and giant companies leading by example, now is the time to pursue the most progressive carbon reduction targets in the world.

Image courtesy of Microsoft.

Written By

ILFI Staff

The International Living Future Institute’s mission is to lead the transformation toward a civilization that is socially just, culturally rich, and ecologically restorative.