Committing to carbon neutrality by 2020

At Bosch we have committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2020. That’s a pretty ambitious target that is unprecedented in scope whilst working to a deadline which is now just months away. We are the first major industrial company to publicly strive to achieve this, and to do so we need to reduce the 3.3 million metric tons of carbon we produce every year to zero.

There is no question that to meet the Paris climate agreement target of carbon neutrality by 2050 it is imperative that industry leads the way. We cannot wait for individual governments and local legislation to force us, just in the same way we cannot expect individuals to immediately change their behaviour and lifestyles to meet this challenge. Industry is one of the largest contributors to CO2 emissions and therefore it is only right that we quickly act to mitigate our impact.

At Bosch, we have been working on energy efficiency projects since 2007. We are continuing to reduce our impact by upgrading or replacing machinery, technologies and lighting in our factories and offices, buying green energy from our suppliers and investing in photovoltaics on our buildings. Longer term we are looking at generating energy ourselves through renewable sources and by developing supplier contracts with wind and solar farms at sites across the world. Where we cannot remove our carbon footprint we will be offsetting this by investing in certified environmental projects such as forestation in Panama or a wind farm in the Philippines. From 2030 onwards, we strive to be carbon-neutral without using such offsets.

In the UK we already have some success stories, between 2007 and 2015 we had already reduced our usage by 27% and this continues despite increased production in our Worcester plant. We are also now powering all our sites using 100% renewable sources. We are now also implementing a uniform approach to increasing transparency on energy usage. We are installing our Bosch Phantom energy and asset software and the Bosch Energy Platform (which both gives us real-time data of our energy usage across an office or factory setting) at all our UK sites. Through this technology we are able to conduct a detailed energy audit, not just in our factories in Worcester and Glenrothes, but our offices too. This knowledge empowers us to make changes locally.

And this work is not only of benefit to the environment, but to Bosch as a whole. Through energy awareness campaigns we encourage innovation in the business, a focus on the long term and even encourage our associates to think environmentally in their day to day work as well as their home lives. This could lead to simplification of processes, collaboration and a waste averse culture.

There is plenty of work still to be done, but we are taking responsibility for our impact and hope to make a difference in the global effort to meet the 2050 target.