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Charles River’s Commitment to Renewable Electricity
Activation of new solar plant will contribute to goal of using 100% renewable energy by 2030
In 2021, Charles River announced a long-term solar energy contract to address the entirety of the our North American electric power requirements with clean, renewable energy. Our portion of the 250 MW Pisgah Ridge Solar project, located in Navarro County, Texas, generates approximately 250,000 MW hours (MWh) of clean energy each year, which is the equivalent of avoiding carbon dioxide emissions from the annual electricity use of more than 20,000 homes.
Recently, the solar plant officially came online, helping drive toward our goal of achieving 100% renewable electricity globally by 2030. In 2022, we announced an agreement with Repsol, to provide renewable wind energy for our European electrical needs. This agreement is for 30.5 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy, which is equivalent to avoiding carbon emissions from the annual electricity consumption of more than 28,000 homes.
Combined, the North American and European projects will supply 90% of our global electricity through renewable energy by the end of the year. Additionally, these agreements support our commitment to RE100 and our efforts to limit climate change to 1.5 °C, as evidenced by participation in the Science-based Targets initiative (SBTi) and Business Ambition for 1.5°C.
We’ve established broader sustainability goals to:
- Reduce absolute Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of its facilities by 50% by 2030, as compared to our baseline in 2018, and
- Reduce absolute Scope 3 (value chain) GHG emissions by 15% by 2030 as compared to our baseline in 2019.
We continue to make progress toward those goals, including:
- In its fourth year, our Sustainability Capital Fund has approved $12.2M in sustainability projects, , with anticipated lifecycles of 10-25 years that will reduce/avoid annual Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by ~6.7%.
- By the end of 2023, we except to decrease our Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions an absolute basis by ~40% from 2018, driven by renewable electricity use and energy conservation measures.