IT services major Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has announced plans to reduce its absolute greenhouse gas emissions across Scope 1 and Scope 2 by 70 percent by 2025 (over 2016 base year) and to achieve net zero emissions by 2030.
In its recently published Integrated Annual Report 2020-21, the company has set forth this new carbon reduction goal after having achieved the previous target of reducing its specific carbon footprint by half by 2020 (versus baseline year FY08), ahead of schedule.
In FY21, TCS’ specific carbon footprint across Scope 1 and Scope 2 was lower by 61.6 percent compared to baseline year FY08.
According to the GHG Protocol corporate standard, a company’s greenhouse gas emissions are classified in three scopes. Scope 1 and 2 are mandatory to report, whereas Scope 3 is voluntary and the hardest to monitor. Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions from the company owned and controlled resources. Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions that emanate from purchased energy from a power utility.
At the core of TCS’ strategy to reduce its carbon footprint is improved energy efficiency through the addition of more green buildings to the company’s real estate portfolio, reduction of IT system power usage, and the use of TCS Clever Energy which leverages IoT, machine learning and AI to optimise energy consumption across campuses.
TCS’ Vision 25x25 is a strategic lever that delinks TCS’ business growth from campus expansion, and brings down emissions related to employee commutes and business travel. Other elements of its net zero aspiration include greater use of renewable sources of energy and carbon removal offsets.
TCS’ environmental footprint was significantly reduced in FY21 due to the large-scale switch to remote working, enabled by its Secure Borderless Workspaces operating model.