Felicia Tan Mon, Jun 13, 2022
ComfortDelGro Corporation (CDG) has become the first Southeast Asian land transport operator to have its carbon emission reduction targets officially approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).
SBTi is an international collaboration between the Carbon Disclosure Project, the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute and the World Wide Fund for Nature.
The approval of the targets by SBTi put businesses on a clear path to reducing emissions and show that their plans are credible and realistic. The approval will also prevent greenwashing by ensuring transparency and accountability.
CDG’s carbon emission targets comprise a 54.6% reduction in absolute Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from its operations, and a 61.2% reduction in absolute Scope 3 GHG emissions from fuel and energy-related activities by 2032. The group’s baseline year is at 2019, which is a closer representation of its emission levels before the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the transport operator, the goals are consistent with reductions required to limit global warming to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement.
In addition, the emissions from its value chain (Scope 3 GHG emissions) also meet the SBTi’s criteria for ambitious value chain goals, in that they are in line with current best practices.
CDG’s managing director and CEO Yang Ban Seng called the approval an “important milestone in our sustainability journey”.
“Since our commitment to SBTi in February 2021, we have been looking at how we could, as a group, develop a viable and sustainable roadmap, including transiting to greener mobility and tapping on renewable energy, so that we are able to achieve these science-based targets within the next decade. Our group sustainability office had worked together with all our local and overseas business operations to establish these targets and submit them to SBTi in just 12 months, ahead of the 24-month timeframe that has been given. We are therefore very pleased that SBTi has validated them,” he says.
He adds: “With maturing electric vehicle (EV) technologies, we are ready to support the decarbonisation ambitions of not just Singapore but also in other countries around the world, which is why we have also joined the Mobility Decarbonization project of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) to share our experience in decarbonisation and the integration of clean energy vehicles into our fleet.”
CDG, as a member of the WBCSD project, will be collaborating with the latter to develop insights on market readiness and share best practices and recommendations to support and accelerate the uptake of electric fleets worldwide.
The move is important as the group increases its global fleet of EVs, says Jackson Chia, CEO for CDG’s private mobility group.
Chia had just reliquinshed his role as group chief sustainability officer.
“We have been steadily increasing our presence in the field of electrification in the last six months. From vehicles to chargers, we are now one of the biggest players in electric mobility in Singapore. Elsewhere, we are also growing our fleet of clean energy vehicles and are also participating in trials with green technologies including hydrogen fuel cell buses. The operational experience we gain from these activities are important sources of information – not just for us, but for the world, as we work together to reduce the global carbon footprint,” he says.