Alongside more than 20 businesses which have made bold commitments on cleaner and smarter energy at this year’s Climate Week NYC, ANZ has pledged to source 100% renewable electricity by 2025. ANZ’s priority will be Australia and New Zealand, where it has the largest footprint, followed by the rest of its operations.
The commitment comes as a result of ANZ’s broader sustainability strategy and in part by the actions and growing expectations of its customers demanding action on climate. In 2017, ANZ joined a consortium led by Telstra, which entered into a long-term Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) covering the first stage of the 226 MW Murra Warra Wind Farm owned by renewable energy project developer RES and Macquarie Capital.
The consortium of electricity buyers includes, in addition to ANZ and Telstra, the University of Melbourne, Monash University and Coca-Cola Amatil; each member of the buyer group has signed a separate PPA with the project for a portion of the total capacity. The first production from Murra Warra started in April.
Aside from mentioning the offtake deal, the ANZ announcement did not provide any further detail on how it plans to meet the 2025 target. “We are committed to reducing our environmental footprint in line with our focus on environmental sustainability. Moving to 100% renewable energy for our electricity by 2025 not only makes good business sense, it is good for the planet and reflects our ongoing support for the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.”
ANZ joins a growing pool of Australian businesses to sign up to the global initiative RE100, which have thus been dominated by the banking sector. Commonwealth Bank of Australia was the first Australian business to join RE100 in November. On the back of a 12 year power purchase agreement, CBA is sourcing energy from the largest wind farm in New South Wales – the 270 MW Sapphire Wind Farm – as of January this year, and is moving towards 100% renewable power by 2030. It was followed by Westpack and Bank of Australia.
Another two businesses to join the initiative are QBE Insurance Group and Atlassian. “I’ve said it many times, renewable energy is cleaner, cheaper and faster. It’s not good enough just to talk about this, we must back our words with action,” said Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-founder and co-CEO of software company Atlassian. “So it’s awesome to see ANZ sign up to go 100% renewable. They are showing genuine leadership on an issue that’s vital to the future of the planet.”
Convened by The Climate Group in partnership with CDP, the RE100 global corporate leadership initiative brings together 204 companies committed to sourcing 100% renewable electricity. According to The Climate Group, this year’s Climate Week NYC is witnessing its busiest year yet for ambitious corporate action with 20+ new commitments on cleaner, smarter energy under The Climate Group’s corporate leadership initiatives RE100, EV100 and EP100.
Ambitious new commitments include Deutsche Telekom targeting 100% renewable electricity by 2021 and Bounce switching 11,000 vehicles plus projected fleet growth to electric (totalling 2 million vehicles by 2030). Also, the world’s biggest solar module manufacturer JinkoSolar has committed to 100% renewable electricity today.
Overall, almost 300 multinational businesses with a combined revenue of US$5.5 trillion now driving climate action on renewable power, electric transport, and smarter energy use in more than 140 markets worldwide, but The Climate Group underlines that a vast global scale-up is still needed to deliver on the Paris Agreement and limit a global temperature rise to 1.5˚C
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