Intel, Cisco Systems and IBM are among the 23 Climate Leadership Award winners selected by the EPA, the Association of Climate Change Officers (ACCO), the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) and The Climate Registry (TCR).
The second annual awards honor companies, organizations and individuals that reduce GHG emissions in internal operations and throughout the supply chain.
Intel is one of five organizational leadership award winners, along with Boulder County, Colo.; Austin, Texas; Port of San Diego; and the Sonoma County Water Agency. Intel exceeded its goal to reduce GHG emissions 20 percent below 2007 levels by the end of 2012, achieving a 60 percent reduction, according to the EPA. Since 2008, Intel has been the largest purchaser of renewable energy in the US.
Intel received an excellence in GHG management (goal achievement) award at the inaugural Climate Leadership Awards last year.
Two executives received individual leadership awards: Microsoft’s senior director of environmental sustainability Tamara “TJ” DiCaprio, and the former chairman and CEO of Entergy Corporation, J. Wayne Leonard.
Cisco, IBM and San Diego Gas & Electric all received supply chain leadership awards. Cisco has achieved a 25 percent absolute CO2 reduction from a 2007 baseline, including business air travel scope 3 emissions. The company is looking to further reduce scope 1-2 and business air travel emissions worldwide on an absolute basis 15 percent by 2017, the EPA says.
IBM set a second-generation operational CO2 emissions reduction goal of a 12 percent absolute reduction by 2012 from a 2005 baseline. As of year-end 2011, IBM had achieved a 16 percent reduction in operational CO2 emissions as compared to the baseline year.
The EPA says SDG&E has also created a GHG reduction goal, aiming for a 20 percent intensity reduction by 2016 from a 2010 baseline.
IBM and SDG&E both won the organizational leadership award in 2012. IBM also made the SMI-Wizness Social Media Sustainability Index 2012 top 10, published this month. The annual review analyzes how major companies use social media to communicate sustainability and corporate social responsibility.
Other Climate Leadership Award winners are: