Greenhouse gas reduction
What is Greenhouse gas reduction at AstraZeneca?
Company operations, such as manufacturing and transportation, emit GHGs including carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), contributing to climate change. Emissions from product use are largely discussed in the Product environmental stewardship, and we account for this emissions source alongside our entire value chain GHG footprint.
Our targets and progress
Our approach
In January 2020, we announced our Ambition Zero Carbon ambition. This accelerates our decarbonisation plans. We are transitioning to decarbonised business now by taking actions to eliminate GHG emissions from our sites and fleet by 2025 without carbon credits and by becoming carbon negative across our entire value chain by 2030. We also seek ways to build climate resiliency.
As a company that follows the science, we use it to inform our climate strategy. We set science based GHG emissions reduction targets in 2015 and were one of the first companies in the FTSE 350 to have them approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which means that our targets are in line with the level of decarbonisation required to keep global temperature increase below 2 degrees Celsius. In May 2019, we received confirmation from SBTi that our GHG Scope 1 and 2 targets are consistent with reductions required to keep warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement. Our Scope 3 targets are aligned with current best practice.
A full description of our GHG emissions methodology is located in our Sustainability Data Summary.
Our stories
Our Ambition Zero Carbon
Our Ambition Zero Carbon strategy is to take climate action now for healthy people and a healthy planet, by becoming carbon negative across our entire value chain by 2030. Our plans include:
- Zero carbon emissions from our global operations (sites and fleet) by 2025 without offsets
- Carbon negative value chain by 2030
- Doubling energy productivity
- Eliminating F-Gas emissions at our sites
- Launching next-generation respiratory inhaler to treat asthma and COPD with near zero climate impact propellants by 2025
- Using 100% renewable energy for power and heat
- Advocating for policy and cross-industry solutions
- Planting 50 million trees to absorb CO2 from the atmosphere
The road to a healthy planet, healthier people through our fleet
We joined The Climate Group's EV100 electric transport initiative and EP100, its energy productivity initiative. We also belong to The Climate Group’s RE100 initiative where our goal is to source and use 100% renewable electricity globally by 2025; we are currently at 62%. We are the 50th company to join EV100 and the first pharmaceutical company to join all three of the groups. By 2025 we expect to have 16,000 electric vehicles with the switch saving the planet over 80,000 metric tonnes of CO2 every year.
This new commitment builds on our existing Green Fleet initiative, where we committed to achieve a 100% hybrid, plug-in (PHEV) or EV fleet in Europe, North America and Japan by 2025. We are installing the necessary charging infrastructure with charging points in Sweden (280), US (104), UK (30) and 9 rapid chargers at our Netherlands offices.
Our Only Future
We're one of 87 companies that has responded to a call-to-action on climate by the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). As part of this group, we have committed to set climate targets across our operations and value chains aligned with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels and reaching net-zero emissions by no later than 2050. The Our Only Future campaign is a natural step on our carbon strategy, as our targets were previously below the 2°C level.