Canada is at a critical cornerstone of its sustainability drive.
With only eight years left to hit 2030 emission targets, the Federal Government is implementing a series of strategies it hopes will power the goal of net-zero by 2050.
This includes refreshing the Federal Sustainable Development Strategy (FSDS) under a strengthened Federal Sustainable Development Act and rolling out a National Plan – Moving Forward Together: Canada’s 2030 Agenda National Strategy.
At Oracle, sustainability has long been ingrained into the business. With objectives similar to those of the Government of Canada, contrasts between our goals and actions can provide policy makers with best practices to facilitate their own journeys.
Like Canada, Oracle has set a target of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and halving greenhouse gas emissions across operations and supply chains by 2030, relative to a 2020 baseline.
As a global company with more than 25 million square feet under operational control, we recognized early that managing natural resource use would have a huge impact on these outcomes. To facilitate the pivot, we divided objectives and strategies under the categories of Emissions and Energy, Water and Waste, and Responsible Sourcing.
In respect to Emissions and Energy, we’ve already met our goal of leveraging 33% renewable energy for Real Estate and Facilities and set a new goal of achieving 100% by 2025. Our approach to energy management is driven by a commitment to maximize efficiency and increase renewable use across our facilities. Our renewable energy usage, improved energy and lighting efficiency, and onsite solar installations have enabled us to reduce our carbon footprint dramatically.
Oracle Cloud further reduces its environmental footprint by leveraging state-of-the-art cooling and energy efficiency technologies at our green data centres. In Europe, our investments have enabled us to power Oracle Cloud data centers using 100% renewable energy and our goal is to achieve this milestone in all our OCI data centers by 2025.
Oracle’s commitment to Global Citizenship includes our procurement activities. We recognized that purchasing decisions present an opportunity to have both a social and environmental impact, which supports doing business in a responsible and sustainable manner. With the cooperation of our employees, customers, contractors, and suppliers, we are committed to environmental management, and we incorporate environmental considerations into all procurement processes. Oracle gathers and evaluates key suppliers’ environmental performance data to make informed choices, assess options with lower environmental impact, and review the environmentally preferable offerings of existing suppliers.
As one of the largest public buyers of goods and services in Canada, the federal government similarly has tremendous influence to drive change in the marketplace. By doing things like evaluating bidders of major projects on their sustainability record, Canada can use its purchasing power to reward innovation and encourage sustainable technology adoption. This approach is consistent with Canada’s allies in the fight against climate change. For instance, as of last April, all the U.K.’s National Health Services’ procurements will include a minimum 10% net-zero and social value weighting. This action is part of a wider roadmap that will eventually require all NHS suppliers to have a carbon reduction plan.
Achieving our ambitions to date required company-wide recognition that sustainability is everyone’s job. To foster this culture, we established employee engagement programs on smart community, recycling and composting and energy conservation. Oracle also set up four global taskforces to track our goals on energy usage, emissions, and waste and water using Oracle Environment Account and Reporting Applications to provide recommendations to help achieve our goals more efficiently.
As Canada implements its strategies, a similar mobilization will be required. Success in sustainability relies on individual actions at the end of the day. Plans and strategies alone can only take you so far. The execution of these by individuals is how benchmarks are accomplished.
Oracle is just one company but, operating in 147 countries, our greatest impact is through practical solutions that can help deliver on sustainability initiatives. As Canada looks to ramp up its efforts in the fight against climate change, embracing best practice solutions that work at scale could prove instrumental in achieving its 2030 and 2050 emission targets.