Novozymes: 1.5º please

With President Trump getting close to being impeached and all, not to mention the beginning of playoff season for Major League Baseball and the Rugby World Cup, you’d be forgiven if this year you neglected to spend the recommended 12 hours of annual study of announcements during the opening week of the UN General Assembly. 

So you might have overlooked that Novozymes’ President and CEO, Peder Holk Nielsen, committed Novozymes to be  among the first companies in the world to commit to keeping the temperature rise due to climate change below 1.5 degrees Celsius and have that commitment validated by the Science Based Targets initiative. For many years, Novozymes has been introducing initiatives to cut down emissions at the world’s largest enzyme manufacturing facility located in Kalundborg, Denmark. Most recently, Novozymes’ partner, Ørsted, inaugurated a biogas plant, which uses biomass residues from Novozymes’ production to generate power – with a promise to slash annual carbon emissions by an estimated 17,000 metric tons.

“The heat is on – literally. To tackle climate change head-on, we need to limit global warming increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius and Novozymes is committed to that by providing the world with low-carbon, biological solutions while also reducing our own emissions,” Peder Holk Nielsen says. “Secretary-General Guterres has asked companies to come up with plans – not just speeches; here is one of the first, validated, and science-based commitments – backed up by a robust plan for action.”

This is real stuff. Novozymes has had its 1.5-degree Celsius target validated by an external body, the Science Based Targets initiative, a collab between CDP, the United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute, and the World Widelife Fund for Nature, also known as the World Wildlife Fund. 

SBTi are tough hombres. 

They look at a company’s historical emissions from operations and value chain, its industry profile, and verifies if its ambition is in line with the 1.5 degrees goal. If this is the case, through a comprehensive validation process, the target receives verification and is considered “science-based”.