Ford sets 2050 target for carbon neutrality

Ford is the latest company to get on board with carbon neutrality. In a new blog post, the company has announced its plans to become carbon neutral by 2050, and to do so will focus on three main areas: vehicle use, its supply base and its company facilities — all of which account for around 95 percent of its CO2 emissions.

The pledge builds on the company’s existing aim of powering all of its manufacturing plants with 100 percent locally-sourced energy by 2035. It’s also committed to investing more than $11.5 billion into electric vehicles through 2022. Interestingly, Ford also says that it’s working on developing goals to align with the Science Based targets initiative, which comprises three Scopes of emissions. Scope 1 covers direct emissions from the company, and Scope 3 relates to the emissions created by the products it sells. Scope 2, meanwhile, covers in-direct emissions created by the company. These are much harder to a) quantify and b) manage, so it will be interesting to see how Ford tackles these — no direct word on this yet.

Ford is in good company in its ambitions. As the climate crisis intensifies, every major brand worth its salt has made similar declarations. Shell, BP, Delta and Formula 1 are just some of the companies that have committed to carbon neutrality in recent times. Microsoft, meanwhile, has plans to go one further and become carbon negative. Environmentalists will certainly say that this rush of green activity is too little, too late, but others will argue that it’s better late than never.