Report highlights progress toward ambitious sustainability goals
Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI), the global leader for smart, healthy and sustainable buildings today released its 2022 Sustainability Report along with the following message from George Oliver, Chairman and CEO and Katie McGinty, Vice President and Chief Sustainability and External Relations Officer:
As we look back on the unfathomable events unfolding in Ukraine, Johnson Controls recognizes how important it is for countries, communities and world leaders to unite in solidarity during such momentous times. We will continue to collectively uphold our own company values and remain committed to leading with integrity, respect, unwavering moral purpose, and humanity. We stand in solidarity with people around the globe who have united in support of peace and stability.
At Johnson Controls, we understand that to support these principles, we must continue to build a healthier, safer and more sustainable planet. Since 1885, sustainability has been at the heart of our business and is fundamental to everything we do. The dedication of our global team of 100,000+ employees, stewards of their communities in more than 150 countries, enables us to achieve our sustainability goals and deliver innovative, sustainable solutions for our customers.
The importance of immediate climate action
The climate crisis is the most pressing environmental challenge of our time, and we are stepping up to do our part. However, we cannot do it alone; we must work collectively with other leading companies and governments across the globe to solve the challenges ahead. As the most recent UN climate report revealed, strong climate action is needed immediately and the window to take action is closing swiftly.
The buildings in which we spend so much of our daily lives play a big part in contributing to global CO2 emissions. Johnson Controls has a special responsibility to be a leader in addressing climate change, given that almost 40 percent of global CO2 emissions come from buildings.
That’s why, as a company, we have committed to net zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2040 and are developing products and services that contribute to low carbon buildings and reduced emissions. We are firmly committed to helping our customers and others around the world pursue their net zero carbon goals, ensuring healthy people, healthy places and a healthy planet.
“As a service” for healthier, more sustainable buildings
In July 2021, we launched OpenBlue Net Zero Buildings as a Service, a one-stop shop for customers looking to achieve net zero. With features such as remote monitoring and predictive maintenance, OpenBlue solutions enable customers to achieve their sustainability strategy and goals that can drive significant improvement in energy efficiency and corresponding carbon emissions.
In January 2022, we unveiled OpenBlue Indoor Air Quality as a Service, the first dedicated “as-a-service” Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) solution for buildings, delivering energy-efficient, turnkey clean air outcomes. We developed this critical innovation just as employees returned to their workplaces and students returned to school. Everyone deserves healthy places to work, learn and play, and we are proud that our solutions make this possible.
Further improving our own sustainability
In addition to helping our customers achieve net zero, Johnson Controls is continuing to take significant steps to further improve our own environmental impacts. In January 2021, we announced a new set of ambitious sustainability commitments, including science-based targets across our operational and product-based emissions and a net zero carbon pledge for Scope 1 and 2 emissions:
- We intend to cut Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 55 percent and our Scope 3 emissions related to our customers’ use of our products by 16 percent in absolute terms by 2030 relative to a 2017 baseline, along with actions supporting emissions reductions in our supply chain.
- Our Scope 1 and 2 targets are consistent with the reductions required to restrict warming to 1.5°C, the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement.
We are moving quickly to act on our sustainability commitments – even while we reduce our footprint beyond the 70 percent reduction in both greenhouse gas intensity and energy intensity that we have already achieved since 2002.
And we are leading the way in supplier sustainability, too. Sustainability is now equal to cost, quality and delivery in supplier performance evaluations.
Putting a financial value on our commitments
We’ve continued to affirm our leadership in sustainable finance. Johnson Controls recently became the first S&P 500 industrial company to release an Integrated Sustainable Finance Framework as well as issue a Sustainability-Linked Bond. This builds on our green finance leadership following our prior green bond issuance and the linking of our senior credit facility to sustainability metrics. As part of our Integrated Sustainable Finance Framework, we further committed to achieving interim absolute emission reduction targets by 2025.
Engaging with global leaders
We are committed to working with leadership across industries and governments to deliver progress on climate change; we realize getting to net zero is a complex journey that can’t be addressed in isolation by one company. Together with the Business Roundtable (BRT) Energy and Environment Committee, we work closely with our peers in the business community to support policies that preserve the environment and maximize energy options. In a recent episode of BRT TV we underscored that we have to move forward with urgency, and we have the opportunity to accelerate progress through strong public-private partnership. We believe that, with that alignment, we can solve the climate crisis.
We want governments to be aware that we support strong and deliberate action to transition our world to a low-carbon economy. Last year, we were honored to join President Biden and world leaders for the Leaders Summit on Climate, where we addressed the role of the US business community in supporting ambitious global climate action and policy that also creates jobs and fosters economic growth.
To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, the world must work together to limit global temperature increases. The United States and the international community must aggressively reduce GHG emissions and create incentives for developing new technologies to achieve these reductions. At Johnson Controls, we know that when we take this challenge on, we will cut emissions, cut costs, and create good jobs and a more resilient, healthy infrastructure.
We were privileged to attend the UN COP26 Climate Conference in Glasgow in November 2021 to support bold policy agreements to accelerate climate action, and while there, to announce a declaration signed by business leaders across many continents aimed at catalyzing climate action.
Partnering with like-minded organizations and generating a deeper understanding of the role our built environment plays in achieving climate goals is critical to our mission. In February 2022, we teamed up with TED Countdown and The Climate Pledge, an initiative co-founded by Amazon and Global Optimism, to generate further awareness of the critical role buildings play in meeting the commitment to be net zero carbon by 2040. As a founding member of the World Economic Forum’s First Movers Coalition, a new platform for companies to make purchasing commitments that create new market demand for low carbon technologies, we recognize how accelerating innovation is critical to making our buildings more sustainable and to lifting up entire communities.
Recognition for leading by example
Awards are one measure of the impact our efforts are making in the world. We are very pleased to report that Johnson Controls has been included on FORTUNE’s “World’s Most Admired Companies” list in 2022. Our inclusion reflects the strides we’ve made in attracting and retaining our talented employees and our commitment to our goal of ensuring a healthy, safe and sustainable world.
Additionally, Johnson Controls recently celebrated its first score of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2022 Corporate Equality Index, the nation’s foremost benchmarking survey and report measuring corporate policies and practices related to LGBTQ+ workplace equality.
We are honored to be recognized by multiple organizations for our leadership in sustainability and ESG:
- Received HRH The Prince of Wales’s inaugural Terra Carta Seal
- Named one of Corporate Knights Global’s 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World and number one in our industry category
- Included on the Forbes list of Best Employers for Diversity 2021
- Identified as a Sustainalytics Top-Rated ESG Performer for managing material ESG issues
- Ranked 67 on the Drucker Institute’s list of best-managed companies in America
Employee engagement
We are grateful for our global team of experts who share a common goal of elevating the Johnson Controls commitment to advancing sustainable and inclusive business practices.
Johnson Controls is pleased to report that more than 13,000 colleagues have included sustainability and diversity metrics in their annual goals, supported by multiple trainings offered at all levels. In furtherance of our robust and recognized diversity and inclusion initiatives, we have elected to publish our EEO-1 report with information regarding the makeup of our workforce. Additionally, our Global Sustainability Network (GSN), an employee-driven Business Resource Group, has a presence in 42 countries and proactively supports our goal to foster a culture of sustainability. Our GSN engages and empowers people who want to make a difference and has seen membership increase by more than 400 percent in the last year.
As we move forward and continue to lead in climate action and sustainability, we realize there is more work to be done. We are building on more than 135 years steeped in innovation to create a more sustainable economy for years and generations to come. We feel a great sense of responsibility and privilege, especially in this pivotal moment in history, to do everything in our power to ensure a world that is peaceful, inclusive, healthy, and sustainable.”
George Oliver
Chairman and CEO
Katie McGinty
Vice President and Chief Sustainability
and External Relations Officer
To download the full report, please click here: https://www.johnsoncontrols.com/2022sustainability
George Oliver, Chairman and CEO Johnson Controls said:
“At Johnson Controls, I am proud that we lead with integrity, respect, unwavering moral purpose, and humanity. We stand in solidarity with those who have united in support of peace and stability, and we will move together toward a world that is peaceful, healthy and sustainable.
The climate crisis is the most pressing environmental challenge of our time and, as a company, we have committed to net zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2040. We are working internally and partnering with others around the world on urgent climate action. For our customers, we solve for zero, deliver products and services that contribute to low carbon buildings and reduced emissions, and are firmly committed to helping our customers pursue their net-zero carbon goals. With our suppliers, we now weigh sustainability equal to cost and quality in supplier performance evaluations.
We are committed to measurable, transparent, and swift action to address climate risks. This year we became the first S&P 500 industrial company to have issued three distinct sustainable finance instruments designed to support and reward our initiatives aimed at combatting climate change. We also achieved a 41 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions intensity and a 15 percent reduction in energy intensity against our 2017 baseline.
Our employees are at the center of it all, working together to deliver healthy people, healthy places, and a healthy planet for generations to come.”