Marubeni will additionally promote carbon neutral purchasing of electricity at domestic consolidated subsidiaries
Osaka head office of Marubeni. (Credit: J o./Wikipedia.org)
Marubeni Corporation (hereinafter, “Marubeni”) will make the electricity purchased at all domestic business locations to carbon neutral from FY2021. Marubeni will additionally promote carbon neutral purchasing of electricity at domestic consolidated subsidiaries.
To achieve these targets, Marubeni will utilize Marubeni Power Retail Corporation (hereinafter, “Marubeni Power Retail”), a wholly-owned subsidiary that conducts electric power retail business. Furthermore, electricity in Marubeni’s new Tokyo headquarters (Marubeni is scheduled to officially move to this new building in 2021) will be supplied by Marubeni Power Retail from the Marubeni Group’s environmentally-friendly hydropower, biomass, and solar power plants, as well as post-FIT solar power, the effective use of which is growing in necessity, and also public hydropower stations in Nagano and Niigata prefectures.
With these efforts, by 2030 the Marubeni Group will reduce its consolidated direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions due to energy generated by business activities by 25% compared to 2018 emissions(FY2018 CO2 emissions = 1,035 thousand tons). Marubeni will periodically disclose progress reports on the reductions, and will continue to reexamine these figures and raise the target value in order to achieve a higher reduction rate that is more in line with the Paris Agreement.
In addition, through its global power businesses over the world, the Marubeni Group will also contribute to provide low carbon and carbon neutral electricity outside the Group as well, by reducing carbon in the Group’s power generation portfolio, and through the wholesale and retailing of electricity generated from renewable sources. Specifically, in addition to reducing coal-fired power generation business and simultaneously expanding renewable energy power generation business*5, the Marubeni Group is implementing the following initiatives:
【Marubeni Power Retail Corporation】
Marubeni Power Retail will strengthen the procurement of various renewable energy power sources such as public hydroelectric power stations in addition to the renewable energy power stations owned by the Marubeni Group.
On the supply side, Marubeni Power offers a wide range of services, such as the “renewable electricity service” which improves renewable energy ratio and reduces emission factor, and the “CO₂ reduction electricity service” which reduces emission factor only. Marubeni Power also offers made-to-order proposals that meet the precise and unique needs of customers.
【SmartestEnergy Limited】
Marubeni’s wholly owned subsidiary, SmartestEnergy Limited (hereinafter, “SEL”), operates a wholesale and electric power retail business in the UK and uses renewable energy for approximately 83% of its contracted electricity (FY2019), reducing CO2 emissions equivalent to the volume emitted from two large coal-fired power plants. SEL has established bases in the United States and Australia, and Marubeni will contribute to the global dissemination of carbon neutrality through SEL.
【Jamaica Public Service Company Limited】
In 2007, when Marubeni participated in Jamaica’s utility Jamaica Public Service Company Limited(hereinafter, “JPS”), 95% of the electricity on the entire island was derived from heavy oil and diesel, but as a result of promoting highly efficient natural gas-fired power generation and renewable energy power generation, the installed capacity of power plants derived from heavy oil and diesel was reduced to less than 50% in 2020 (Installed capacity in Jamaica in July 2020：1,157MW). Marubeni is contributing to the low carbonization of electricity on the entire island.
The Marubeni Group as a whole will continue to promote initiatives that contribute to the fight against climate change.