Cummins Joins Better Climate Challenge to Reach Key GHG Goals

Global power leader Cummins Inc. has been accepted into the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Climate Challenge, one of 35 members pledging to reduce their scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50% within 10 years.

Scope 1 emissions include direct emissions owned or controlled by an entity. Scope 2 covers indirect emissions from the generation of purchased electricity, steam, heating and cooling.

“Cummins has benefited greatly from its participation in the department’s Better Buildings, Better Plants Challenge to reduce our environmental footprint,” said Mark Dhennin, the company’s Director of Energy and Environment for Facilities and Operations. “I’m confident this partnership will help us reach our aggressive carbon reduction goals for 2030.”

Other groups participating in this most recent Department of Energy (DOE) initiative range from Ford and General Motors, to the Deschutes Brewery in Central Oregon and the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, which develops affordable housing in San Francisco. 

Any organization with a portfolio of buildings, plants or housing in the United States is eligible to join the DOE challenge provided they are willing to set a portfolio-wide goal of at least 50% emissions reduction over 10 years. In return, they can access technical assistance for reaching their goals through the DOE’s network of national laboratories as well as “peer-exchange” opportunities through conferences, webinars, regional meetings and more.

The program builds on the success of the Better Buildings, Better Plants Challenge, which Cummins drew on extensively to achieve intensity reductions of 27% in energy and 41% in GHGs by the end of 2020 from a baseline year of 2010. 

The company has established a new set of 2030 goals to build on the success of its 2020 goals, including several aligned to the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement to keep global temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Among those new goals is reducing absolute GHG emissions from facilities and operations by 50%. The 2030 goals are included in PLANET 2050, the company’s environmental sustainability strategy adopted in 2019.

The Better Climate Challenge will allow the company to draw on both the expertise of other like-minded organizations and the DOE as well as share what it has learned since Cummins established its first public energy reduction goal some 15 years ago.