The main goal set by the Digital Stars refer to their carbon footprint. 80% of the Digital Stars have the the target reach carbon neutrality across its entire value chain, with the exception of Adobe and Amazon. The majority aims to do so within the next decade.
The main actions to achieve carbon neutrality can be seen below:
Some concrete implementations of the above mentioned actions taken by the Digital Stars can be seen in the table below:
Action | Implementation |
Improve energy efficiency | - Improvement of computational capacity of datacenters by hardware and software advancements
- Improvement of buildings’ energy efficiency, by retrofitting old location to ensure energy efficient strategies, and use energy efficient design in construction of new buildings |
Increase renewable energy procurement | - Purchase of long-term renewable energy power purchase agreements
- Install on-site energy generation through photovoltaic panels |
Partner with suppliers to reduce their emissions | - Build supplier’s capacity on data reporting
- Support on-site energy assessments that identify energy reduction opportunities and improve environmental performance |
Purchase/Invest in carbon compensation solutions | - Investments in carbon offsets projects
- Investment in carbon removal projects– Nature (e.g., reforestation) and technology-based solutions (e.g., Direct Air Capture) |
Include Environmental Policy as an aspect of procurement | Require that suppliers have emission or environmental reduction targets in place |
Reduce Business travel | - Hire local crew to reduce business travel
- Use of videoconferencing tools |
Introduce work from home initiatives | - Use videoconferencing tools such as Teams
- Introduce different working possibilities with flex, fully remote and office-based models |
Install EV charging stations in offices | |
Improve Product energy efficiency | - Make more energy efficient devices by designing more efficient chips to lower customer energy use
- Incorporate power-management software to reduce energy consumption during use |
Electrify vehicle fleet | - Purchase of electric vehicles for delivery of goods and products to customers
- Buildup of electrified campus fleets |
In comparison to the carbon-related targets, the water-related goal have a much smaller diffusion across the Digital Stars with only 30% having set out impact reduction goals. Apple, Microsoft and Facebook aim to be water positive by 2030. The most adopted actions to reduce their water impact can be seen below:
Action | Diffusion |
expansion of the use of alternative water sources, such as rainwater for flushing and sea- and canal water for data center colling | 80% |
reduction of the water intensity of its operations, for example, by using data center cooling techniques such as outside air | 70% |
improvement of the companies’ water tracking | 50% |
partnering with NGOs to introduce water replenishment projects (20%), such as restoring wetlands and improving water access of communities | 20% |
A measure that contributes to diminishing the companies’ water impact indirectly is to purchase renewable energy, as the generation of renewable energy requires less water than the generation coming from fossil fuels
Regarding waste and resources, the only goals set by more than one company are the zero-waste sent to landfill goal set by Apple and Microsoft and the no plastic in packaging goal set by Apple and Alphabet. The actions which were most adopted are the introduction of circularity principles, such as refurbishing and selling retired hardware and switching to reusable alternatives from single-use materials. However, both actions are only taken by 40% of the Digital Stars. Other actions which are shared by the Digital Stars include improving employee waste awareness (30%) and working with suppliers to reduce the waste generated in manufacturing (30%).
Some Digital Stars set goals referring to other environmental focus areas, but which are not shared by any companies. Some of them include protecting more land than the company uses (Microsoft), helping more than 500 cities and local governments reduce an aggregate of 1 gigaton of carbon emissions annually (Google), including no plastic in products (Apple) and including only renewable or recyclable materials in packaging and products (Apple).
The goal, which was already achieved, or which was set out the most by the Digital Stars is to power its operations solely with renewable energy. 50% of the Digital Stars have already achieved it, while 40% aim to reach it by 2045.