On the path to climate neutrality, renewables represent a key area where companies can make major adjustments. Bosch is expanding in-house power generation at its locations and is set to be a long-term customer of renewable electricity from newly constructed wind and solar parks. To this end, the supplier of technology and services has signed three exclusive long-term purchasing agreements for PV electricity with the providers RWE, Statkraft, and Vattenfall.
“Climate change isn’t taking a break, so neither are we. By the end of the year, we will achieve our ambitious goal of no longer leaving a carbon footprint,” said Volkmar Denner, the CEO of the Bosch Group. All 400 Bosch locations worldwide will then be climate-neutral. The company’s German sites have been climate-neutral since the end of 2019. “Our efforts for the energy transition will continue after 2020. Investing in renewables is an important testament to this,” Denner added, explaining that while climate action costs money, doing nothing would be more expensive – especially since investing in energy efficiency also leads to cost savings.
Besides renewables, Bosch is investing above all in energy efficiency at its own locations in order to realize carbon neutrality. From now until 2030, the company intends to further improve the ecological quality of its carbon neutrality by gradually ramping up these two measures. As an effective short-term lever, Bosch is also purchasing green electricity from existing plants and fully offsetting unavoidable carbon emissions through selected climate-action measures.
“In 2020, the share of carbon offsets will be far lower than projected. In other words, we are making faster progress than we expected in further improving the quality of the measures we take,” Denner said. Bosch intends to significantly increase the share of renewables in its energy consumption. The three new long-term agreements for PV electricity are moving the company toward achieving this goal; they are also driving the energy transition forward. In total, Bosch emitted around 1.94 million metric tons of CO₂ worldwide in 2019 – already about one-third less than in the previous year.