Nokia is charging ahead to fully renewable electricity by 2025
What are renewable forms of electricity and how does Nokia use them in its operations?
The United Nations defines renewable energy as “energy derived from natural sources that are replenished at a higher rate than they are consumed”. At COP 26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in 2021, Nokia announced the target to achieve 100 percent purchased electricity from renewable sources by 2025 to power its offices, R&D labs, and factories. We are on target to achieve this goal. We are proud members of RE100, which gives us a framework to report our activities transparently. What’s more, this month, we are honored to have been recognized for our efforts in this area as Nokia has been selected as the winner for the Best Newcomer category in the 2022 RE100 Leadership Awards.
RE100 is a global initiative bringing together the world's most influential businesses committed to 100 percent renewable electricity. RE100 considers electricity produced from the following energy sources as renewable:
- Geothermal
- Solar
- Sustainably sourced biomass (including biogas)
- Hydropower
- Wind
Why is this important?
The latest IPCC report clearly shows the climate emergency that we face. Nokia is committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, and has committed to a 50 percent reduction by 2030 compared to the baseline year of 2019 as part of our science-based target (SBT). The target applies to our Scopes 1, 2 and 3 emissions and covers the following activities:
Scope 1: emissions from our facilities, car fleet and marine fleet
Scope 2: emissions from purchased energy
Scope 3: emissions from the customer use of sold products (covering almost 100 percent of our current portfolio) and emissions from the logistics and the final assembly factories in our supply chain .
For more information on our Science Based Targets, you can click here. While electricity used within our own operations accounts for less than one percent of our total emissions in 2021, it is a significant contributor to our Scope 1 and 2 Greenhouse Gas emissions (circa 60 percent in 2021). Nokia is implementing many initiatives to reduce its Scope 3 footprint, but we also believe it is critical to do the right thing within our own operations.
What is Nokia doing in this area?
We focus on energy efficient facility and workplace design, smarter products, and active asset replacement. In our Facility operations we are implementing initiatives to improve our energy efficiency. In addition, we have decided to accelerate the transition to renewable electricity.
We have committed to match 100 percent of the electricity used across our global operations with electricity produced from renewable sources and we are on track to reach our target of 60% renewable electricity in 2022. As a part of this process, we are using the following sourcing options:
- Green contracts (renewable electricity products directly obtained from an energy supplier)
- Power Purchase Agreements (renewable energy contracts between a purchaser and a generator)
- On-site solar
- Unbundled Renewable Energy Certificates, also known as Energy Attribute Certificate or Guarantee of Origin (contractual instruments issued by renewable electricity generators and purchased separately from the energy supply contract)
Further information on the types of sourcing options that are available can be accessed via the RE100 Technical Criteria from March 2021.
Nokia is present in more than 120 countries which can present a challenge to source and use high quality renewable electricity instruments across the world. We have ambitious targets and we have committed to work with our partners to drive change and improve availability of renewables. Here are some examples of the initiatives that we have implemented so far:
- In our flagship factory in Oulu, Finland we are already running on 100 percent renewable electricity and district heating.
- In our Chennai factory in India our existing wind power purchase agreement is being boosted by a new 3,600 panel rooftop solar plant.
- In our Horizonte building in Portugal, 610 new solar panels on top of the employee car park are generating 18 percent of all the electricity used in the building.
- Elsewhere, we are upgrading air conditioning systems and electrical installations, transforming lighting with automated and LED systems to improve energy efficiency
What does the future hold?
We see an increase in the number of corporations joining the pledge to renewable electricity. This is a welcome development, and it will increase the demand for renewable electricity, hopefully driving the creation of new renewable electricity plants. The support of governments will be critical in facilitating the accelerated development of this infrastructure.
In this blog, we explored Nokia’s strategy for renewable electricity, but another area of focus is the decarbonization of the other Scope 1 and 2 emission sources which include gas, district heating and cooling. We are tackling this subject in parallel as part of our greenhouse gas emissions reduction journey.
Links:
Our approach | Nokia
Our priorities and targets | Nokia
nokia-people-and-planet-2021-sustainability-report.pdf
https://www.nokia.com/about-us/sustainability/articles/
