By Kevin Rabinovitch, Mars Chief Climate Officer
Transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy is a significant global decarbonization lever on the way to a Net Zero future1. The UN has called for a tripling of renewable energy capacity by 20302. However, many of the largest companies are well on their way to supplying 100% of their direct electricity needs with renewables3. That means their appetite for incremental renewable electricity will be limited. So how can those companies help create a tripling of demand in service of the UN goal?
Challenges with Conventional Approaches
Conventional wisdom calls on those companies to engage directly with their thousands of suppliers and the suppliers of those suppliers to encourage them to engage directly in renewables procurement. In some cases with direct suppliers that can be successful, but it lacks speed and scale and consumes significant “soft” resources in terms of education and negotiation. This model alone will not lead to a tripling of demand for renewables in the next 5 years.
Introducing Renewables Acceleration (RAcc)
Renewables Acceleration (RAcc) is an innovative strategy option for those sophisticated, large scale, credit worthy buyers to extend their renewables procurement into their value chains and directly support the development and expansion of renewable generation. This is far faster and more efficient than asking those large buyers to convince all of their suppliers and customers to go source small amounts of renewables. For a business like Mars, the electricity use up and down our value chain (~6-7 TWh) is roughly triple what we use in our factories, offices and clinics (~2 TWh).
The Impact of RAcc
Under RAcc we can bring all of that demand to the market now and could have those assets online before 2030 – turning Mars from a 2 TWh into an 8-9 TWh renewable electricity customer. If a similar approach was applied by others, that could accelerate the expansion of renewable generation:
- RE100’s 2023 member reporting (link(Opens a new window)) becoming 481+1443 TWh
- CEBA’s 2024 State of the US Market (link(Opens a new window)) becoming 84+252 GW
- RE-Source Europe PPA deal tracker (link(Opens a new window)) becoming 50+150 GW
That’s the world we want tomorrow, and we believe doing Renewables Acceleration for Scope 3 today is the way to get there.
To find out more, click here(Opens a new window).
