Renewable Energy Demand Among Fortune 500 & 100 Companies Growing Quickly

Renewable energy demand for companies within the Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 “is significant and growing quickly,” according to a new report published this week by national US business group Advanced Energy Economy.

Published on Tuesday by the Advanced Energy Economy, the new report, 2016 Corporate Advanced Energy Commitments, shows that 71 of Fortune 100 companies have set renewable energy or sustainability targets, up from 60 just two years ago. Among Fortune 500 companies, commitments have held steady at 43%/215 companies — though of these companies, 22 have committed to powering all their operations from renewable energy.

“Companies are committed to purchase renewable energy one way or another — it’s just a question of where and how, and that’s a race every state should want to win,” explained Malcolm Woolf, senior vice president of policy and government affairs at AEE. “Clearly, this trend isn’t going away. States that make it easier for companies to purchase renewable energy will be rewarded with new economic development, tax revenues and jobs.”

The 22 companies (and their corresponding ranking in the Fortune 500) committing to 100% renewable energy are as follows:

1. Walmart (#1)
2. Apple (#3)
3. General Motors (#8)
4. Amazon (#18)
5. HP (#20)
6. Microsoft (#25)
7. Bank of America (#26)
8. Wells Fargo (#27)
9. Procter & Gamble (#34)
10. Alphabet (#36)
11. Johnson & Johnson (#39)
12. Goldman Sachs Group (#74)
13. Nike (#91)
14. AbbVie (#123)
15. Starbucks (#146)
16. Facebook (#157)
17. VF (#231)
18. Voya Financial (#252)
19. Biogen (#263)
20. Avon Products (#370)
21. Salesforce (#386)
22. Coca-Cola European Partners (#397)

“Microsoft is making great progress towards our goal to use more clean energy each year, leading to our 100 percent goal,” said Rob Bernard, chief environmental strategist at Microsoft. “We’ve found that partnering with utilities and governments in states like Virginia, Wyoming and elsewhere can bring new energy to the grid in a way that helps our business and the state. But there’s more work still to be done to accelerate the pace of this progress.”

“Salesforce has set a target to meet 100% of our energy needs through renewable energy, and we have made great progress, for example, with wind projects in West Virginia and Texas,” said Patrick Flynn, Director of Sustainability at Salesforce. “The more options available to us in a given state, the better and we’re always looking at new and innovative solutions.”

A separate report explains that corporate renewable energy commitments present several challenges, but also several opportunities. There are regulatory and policy obstacles blocking the way for some companies, making renewable energy procurement difficult, or downright impossible.