Tencent targets carbon neutrality by 2030

Shanghai — China’s Tencent Holdings said on Thursday it plans to have its operations and supply chain carbon neutral by the end of the decade.

The company, whose businesses include messaging app WeChat to games and cloud-based services, is also committing to using green power for 100% of its electricity use by 2030.

Tencent said it aims to lower energy consumption per unit of output throughout its operations and increase renewable energy use.

The tech giant will participate in green power trading and explore investments in renewable energy projects, as well as adopt carbon offsets for some business segments. Tencent added it would also promote a low-carbon ethos to its consumers and businesses.

An internal review found the company’s total greenhouse gas emissions were equivalent to 5.111-million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2021 last year, it said.

“It is Tencent’s responsibility as a global technology leader to help the world achieve carbon neutrality, and it’s also an essential part of our vision to use ‘tech for good’,” CEO Pony Ma said in a statement.

China said last year it aims to be carbon neutral by 2060 — a goal that has put the country’s biggest firms under pressure to draw up their own plans to reach net zero.

But the big tech firms remain hugely dependent on the country’s coal-dominated energy system and only few have committed to switching to renewable sources of electricity.

Fellow tech giant Alibaba Group said in December it is aims to achieve carbon neutrality for its operations by the end of the decade while also slashing emissions across its supply chains and transportation networks.

Environment group Greenpeace last year ranked Tencent as the best-performing Chinese cloud service provider in terms of procuring renewable energy and cutting emissions. Huawei Technologies came second, Baidu third and Alibaba fourth. 

Reuters