Happy (belated) #EEDay2022! Energy Efficiency Day is a collaborative effort supported by energy efficiency advocacy groups around the US, including ACEEE, the Alliance to Save Energy, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Since its start in 2016, Energy Efficiency Day’s message (and mission) has been to “Save money. Cut pollution. Create jobs.” According to the official Energy Efficiency Day website, the “goal is to share tips, tools, and stories that promote the multiple benefits of energy efficiency, from lower costs to healthier homes.”

To celebrate, we’re sharing some exciting updates on our company’s sustainability efforts. We hope you had a chance to honor the day.

See ya later, carbon footprint!

We’ve been working diligently to shrink our carbon footprint as a company. We measure our greenhouse gas emissions, take action to reduce them, and negate our annual emissions by purchasing high-quality carbon-removal credits. We have two top-level sustainability commitments:

• Reduce our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 42% by 2030 and produce net-zero carbon by 2050
• Measure our carbon emissions on an annual basis and take action to remove that carbon from the atmosphere using high-quality carbon-removal credits

We’ve calculated our carbon footprint for 2018, 2019, and 2020 using the widely recognized Greenhouse Gas Protocol (figure 1). We saw an absolute reduction in our emissions of 54% from 2019 to 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This drop came primarily from reduced business travel and employee commuting.

Figure 1: E Sourcee enterprise emissions for 2018, 2019, and 2020

Be sure to visit our Sustainability at E Source page to read more about our ongoing projects and sustainability goals. And download Understanding and addressing our carbon footprint (PDF) to read the results of our most recent emissions calculations.

We’re committed to reaching a near-term Science-Based Target

We’re excited to announce that E Source has been approved for a near-term Science Based Target (SBT) through the Science Based Target initiative. These targets show companies and financial institutions how much and how quickly they need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to prevent the worst effects of climate change.

With this SBT approval, we’re committing to reduce our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 42% by 2030 from a 2020 base year and to measure and reduce our Scope 3 emissions. Scope 1 includes natural gas emissions and fugitive emissions from refrigerants at all of our offices. Scope 2 includes electricity consumption at all of our offices. And Scope 3 includes everything else, like business travel, work-from-home emissions, and emissions from our vendors.

There are currently just over 1,800 companies that have approved Science Based Targets, and E Source is proud to join companies like Amazon, Apple, Ball, Nike, and Volvo in this important initiative.