responsAbility certified as Carbon Neutral Company
Following the guidelines and requirements of the Carbon Neutrality pledge, responsAbility purchased carbon credits from offsetting projects to compensate for the emissions from 2018. Like many international companies, the main source of GHG emissions was business travel, with the total emissions amounting to an estimated 1,948 tonnes of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e).
To offset these emissions, responsAbility supported the Isangi REDD+ project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and saved 699 hectares of primary forest from logging annually. This is comparable to an area of more than 100 times the surface of the Zurich football stadium Letzigrund (with space for 30,000 people). Not only does this help to protect the natural habitat of multiple endangered species such as the leopard, it also helps to alleviate local poverty by promoting sustainable economic development in a remote part of one of the world’s poorest nations.
“Being a carbon neutral company is our responsibility and is aligned with our mission statement. Our investors ask for it, and so does the talent that we want to hire.”
Rochus Mommartz, CEO responsAbility
In addition, responsAbility financed the purchase of solar panels for Project Kunyumba, a day care center in Malawi. Those solar panels will generate 40,000 kWh of clean electricity over their lifetime. This is enough to power a Tesla Model S to drive for 160,000 km, which is nearly 4 times around the world.
Our commitment goes beyond compensation and therefore responsAbility will develop and execute an action plan to reduce its emissions intensity. This plan will be presented to the company Executive Management in the second half of 2019 and published before the end of the year.
The full footprint report (GHG) produced by South Pole can be found here.