During Climate Energy Week in New York, held in 2016 from Sept. 19-25th, Apple announced it would join the RE100 club. What is the RE100 club? It is a group of businesses and corporations committed to powering their operations solely on renewable energy. Apple claims to already run its operations on about 93% renewable energy and it is great to see these types of companies making this type of effort.

Many of the businesses are meeting the RE100 pledges through what are called “power purchase agreements” (PPA). These agreements allow the businesses to purchase renewable energy from a power company to meet their energy needs. The agree on a fixed rate for obtaining the renewable electricity and receive a certificate to prove that their share of power generation came from renewable sources. This should bring benefits at a larger scale although there are critics that say the ability to change over to renewable power may discourage companies from trying to use less energy or building their own generation on-site (Clean Energy News).

81 companies are now apart of the RE100 club after Apple, General Motors, Bank of American, and Amalgamated Bank joined last week. Some of the other companies include IKEA, Coca-Cola, Adobe, Goldman Sachs, Google, and many more (a full list can be seen here: RE100 Companies). We can only hope more companies continue to join in the renewable energy push and that this organization keeps moving in a positive direction to minimize our environmental impact.

Requirements for RE100 Companies as listed by RE100.

Requirements of RE100 companies: Companies joining RE100 make a global, public commitment to 100% renewable electricity. To achieve this goal, they must match 100% of the electricity used across their global operations with electricity produced from renewable sources – biomass (including biogas), geothermal, solar, water and wind – either sourced from the market or self-produced.

RE100 companies can achieve 100% renewable electricity through:

• Procurement of renewable electricity sourced from generators and suppliers in the market: This can take the form of green electricity contracts with utilities, Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) or renewable electricity certificates.
• Production of renewable electricity from their own on-site and off-site facilities: A company may produce its own  renewable electricity from installations it owns or controls. These can be grid-connected or entirely off the grid.

To receive the full RE100 criteria please contact the team at info@RE100.org.

RE100 encourages companies to be completely transparent about the options they have chosen to meet their renewable electricity goals. This information is provided in RE100 company case studies and is available in the RE100 Annual Report.

Company progress towards 100% renewable electricity is reported annually to RE100 via CDP’s Climate Change questionnaire. Consumption and production of renewable electricity need to meet credibility and transparency requirements, and be verified by a third party.