BEIJING: China’s leading tech companies have been making efforts to reduce their carbon footprint, aligning with the government’s pledge to peak the country’s carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.
Research predicts that by 2040 information and communications technology will account for 14% of global emissions, up from 1.5% in 2018.
Tech giants are in the vanguard of China’s net-zero shift.
Last Thursday, Tencent announced its plan to achieve carbon neutrality in its operations and supply chain by no later than 2030, committing to using green power for 100% of all electricity consumed by 2030.
Tencent’s plan includes the reduction of carbon emissions from power consumption in data centres and buildings, as well as the reduction of indirect carbon emissions from the supply chain, such as infrastructure materials, purchased servers, and energy use in company-leased data centres, according to Xu Hao, the company’s vice-president of sustainable social value.
Meanwhile, more tech companies are trying to drive change toward a low-carbon society by fostering open innovation and knowledge sharing and leveraging the reach and influence of their platforms and products.
Lenovo, the world’s largest PC manufacturer, has developed a liquid cooling technology for data centres. It can reduce energy consumption by up to 40% while maintaining performance.
At Lenovo’s manufacturing base in Hefei, Anhui Province, where one out of every eight PCs sold globally is made, the company deploys a system to improve production efficiency and reduce idle time, saving more than 2,696 MWh of electricity annually.
The annual saving of electricity translates to an emission reduction of 2,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide, an impact comparable to planting 110,000 trees per year.
Carbon capture, utilisation and storage, or carbon capture and storage, is a set of technologies used to strip carbon dioxide from industrial waste gases or directly from the atmosphere. — China Daily/ANN