Investment in renewables and energy storage is the new trend among U.S. corporates. Google’s portfolio of renewable energy increased 43% in 2019 alone and has been 100% powered by renewables since 2017. Apple achieved 100% renewable energy in 2018, and is planning to buy ‘green aluminium’ from Elysis, a joint venture between Rio Tinto and Alcoa.
Facebook is on track to hit its 2020 target of 100% renewable energy as a result of large PPAs for wind and solar, while Microsoft already reached that target. Amazon also heavily invested in utility-scale wind and solar energy projects in the U.S and around the world.
IBM and HP Enterprise have committed to 55% renewable energy by 2025, and Accenture has committed to only rely on renewable energy by 2023.
U.S. President Trump, in contrast, has removed the world’s second largest greenhouse gas emitter from the Paris Climate Agreement, which “makes private sector efforts on sustainability all the more important,” IEFFA analyst Clark Butler commented.
“Corporates realised early that investing in renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs), makes good business sense,” he said, and “the more electricity-intensive an industry, the larger the financial savings.”
The fossil fuel energy sector commanded just 4.3% of the Standard & Poor’s 500 index at the end of 2019, “and probably just half of this today,” Butler said. That’s a stark contrast to the 1980s, when oil and gas companies represented seven of the top 10 companies in the S&P 100, accounting for 25% of the index.