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Chinese Tech Giant Tencent Pledges Carbon Neutrality by 2030

Chinese tech giant said its total emissions were equivalent to 5.11 million tonnes of CO2 in 2021. It wants its operations and supply chain to be carbon neutral by the end of the decade


A Tencent logo is seen at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen. Photo: Reuters.

 

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

The company, whose businesses range from 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 significantly increase renewable energy use.

The tech giant will actively 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’,” chief executive Pony Ma said in a statement.

China said last year it is aiming to become carbon neutral by around 2060 – a goal that has put the country’s biggest firms under pressure to draw up their own roadmaps to reach “net zero.”

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

Fellow tech giant Alibaba Group said in December it is aiming 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 with additional editing by Jim Pollard

 

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Jim Pollard

Jim Pollard is an Australian journalist based in Thailand since 1999. He worked for News Ltd papers in Sydney, Perth, London and Melbourne before travelling through SE Asia in the late 90s. He was a senior editor at The Nation for 17+ years.

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