Corporates join forces for climate change

Some of the world’s leading corporations have joined forces to call on governments to remove barriers that are preventing businesses from directly sourcing green energy.

Almost 100 organisations including Amazon, Facebook, Google, IKEA, Microsoft and WePower signed a declaration which calls on policymakers to remove all regulatory and administrative barriers to corporate sourcing of renewable energy.

The declaration was launched at a RE-Source event in Amsterdam this week and is further proof that business leaders are all on the same page about the need to urgently transition to green energy — and for solutions, like WePower’s platform, which offer corporates a way to speed up this process.

Did you know that corporate renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs) worth 6 GW of new production capacity have already been signed in Europe, representing billions of Euros of investment and thousands of jobs? A new survey of 1,200 corporates carried out by BayWa shows that 80% believe that using renewable energy gives the company a competitive advantage.

Here’s what some of the top companies are saying:

“As the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable energy, we are dedicated to doing our part to scale renewables in Europe. Expansion of corporate PPAs can be a major driver in Europe’s renewable energy transition,” — Marc Oman, Senior Energy Lead from Google

“IKEA has set an ambition to be climate positive by 2030, reducing more greenhouse gas emissions than the value chain emits. A key part of this transformation will aim to use 100% renewable energy throughout the entire IKEA value chain” — Pia Heidenmark Cook, CSO of IKEA Group (Ingka Holding)

“Corporate sourcing of renewable energy plays a key role in accelerating Europe’s clean energy transition. The demand from corporates is clear…we look forward to a regulatory framework further enabling corporate PPAs to allow more investments in renewable energy, taking us ahead in our journey towards a greener Europe” — Vanessa Miler, Renewable Energy Strategist, Microsoft.

To unlock the full potential for investing directly in onsite and offsite renewable energy, governments need to enable a wider variety of procurement models and market products — as well as allow companies to sign cross-border renewable energy transactions to maximise opportunities to deploy the most cost-effective renewable energy solutions. WePower continues to work in this space and will soon launch auctions in Australia to allow corporates to access green energy directly from producers.