Over a third of major IT firms sign up to 'Race to Zero' campaign

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Over a third of major IT firms sign up to 'Race to Zero' campaign

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Over a third of major IT firms sign up to 'Race to Zero' campaign

Adobe and Oracle are among the latest to join the campaign

The UN-backed 'Race to Zero' campaign has announced that 40 per cent of the world's major IT companies (by revenue) have signed up, committing to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 at the latest.

Race to Zero is an international alliance of organisations, businesses, investors, cities and universities committed to mobilising credible climate action to halve global emissions by 2030, and achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

So far 733 cities, 31 regions, 3,067 businesses, 173 investors, and 622 higher education institutions have signed up.

Collectively, these actors cover nearly 25 per cent of global CO2 emissions and over 50 per cent of GDP, the campaign claims.

Race to Zero is the largest ever coalition committed to achieving net zero carbon emissions in the next 30 years, with involvement from actors in 120 countries.

Software giants Adobe and Oracle are among the latest tech firms to sign up to the campaign.

Paul Robson, president of international at Adobe, said the company is committed to powering 100 per cent of its global operations with renewable energy by 2035 - and 70 per cent of the target is achievable by 2022.

"Today, we're proud to announce our participation in the Race to Zero campaign as part of the commitments we made through the Science Based Targets initiative," he stated.

Oracle's chief sustainability officer, Jon Chorley, said that the firm has already announced its goal to power global operations and data centres with 100 per cent renewable energy by 2025.

"We are also going beyond our 2025 goals, and setting a target to reach net-zero GHG emissions across Scopes 1, 2 and 3 by 2050 and halve our global emissions by 50 per cent by 2030," Chorley noted.

The latest announcement comes after the tech industry's flagship climate action group, Tech Zero, said in July that it had become an official partner organisation to the UN Race to Zero campaign. Over 100 businesses have agreed to the Tech Zero commitments since its launch in June. The group is calling on 1,000 businesses to sign up before COP26 this November.

In recent years, many large tech firms have signed key declarations to combat climate change.

For example Amazon, Microsoft and Google - the world's largest public cloud providers - have promised to use more renewable energy to power their data centres.

In 2019, Amazon pledged to be 100 per cent powered by renewable energy by 2025 and carbon neutral by 2040, a decade before the Paris Accord target for net zero emissions.

Last year, Apple also pledged to become 'carbon neutral' throughout its entire business, manufacturing supply chain and product life cycle by 2030. The iPhone maker said that it is already carbon-neutral across its global corporate operations, but the new pledge means that every Apple product sold worldwide would need to have zero climate impact by the end of the decade.

Earlier this year, leading players in the European data centre and cloud infrastructure industry signed the Climate Neutral Data Center Pact - with a commitment to lead the European industry in transition to a climate neutral economy.

Computing will run the Tech Impact Conference next year, exploring the relationship between tech and the climate - including case studies about the road to net zero, how to go green in your data centre and supply chain, and how to make small changes with a big impact. For those who are passionate about the planet - and those who are more wary - there has never been a better time to get involved.

Adobe and Oracle are among the latest to join the campaign

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