Why We Are Joining the Better Climate Challenge

In 2021, we pledged to achieve carbon neutrality throughout our facilities and operations by 2035.

As of February 2022, we’ve taken another step toward our commitment to reducing our environmental impact through sustainability projects and technologies: by joining the United States Department of Energy’s Better Climate Challenge.

Here’s what to know about the effort.

What is the Better Climate Challenge? A US government platform designed to mitigate the impacts of climate change by uniting organizations with greenhouse gas goals that entail at least a 50% of reduction in US scope 1 and scope 2 emissions within 10 years.

Organizations that join the Better Climate Challenge also commit to developing a plan with Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions reduction milestones, sharing their progress and solutions with other organizations and reporting on their scopes data during the 10-year timeframe.

What does scope 1 and 2 mean? Defined by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions from owned or controlled sources, such as vehicles and facilities. Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions from purchased electricity and steam.

What’s our commitment?

As a partner of the Better Climate Challenge, we’ve pledged to reduce US scopes 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 50% and improve energy efficiency by an additional 10% by 2030, from a 2018 baseline.

Both of these commitments build on our two-decade-long program to reduce our GHGs, which has resulted in a more than 90% improvement in our GHG intensity since 2004. It also complements our extensive portfolio of products and services that help our customers meet their sustainability goals.  “For Honeywell, sustainability is a comprehensive commitment, from our legacy sites, to our operations, to our products,” said chief sustainability officer Evan Van Hook.  “The Better Climate Challenge will allow us to leverage our decades of experience in partnership with the DOE and other committed companies to continuously improve our decarbonization efforts.”

How we plan to get there:

By investing in energy savings projects, converting to renewable energy sources, making improvements to Honeywell sites and upgrading our fleet of vehicles, focusing on Honeywell technologies wherever possible.

Throughout the next 10 years, we’ll continue building on the progress we’ve made in implementing sustainability-focused solutions across our operations

Meeting customers’ needs will continue to be a priority – with approximately 50% of our new product research and development directed toward building sustainability-focused solutions.

Learn more: Listen to Chief Sustainability Officer Evan van Hook explain how we’ll achieve our carbon neutrality pledge.