New Zealand-born accounting software company Xero was one of the latest signatories for The Climate Pledge, the campaign organized by Amazon and Global Optimism that requires pledgers to commit to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2040
FREMONT, CA: As part of its social and environmental impact programme, Xero, which has roughly 3 million users for its cloud-hosted applications and about 4,000 employees proclaimed its Net Zero @ Xero strategy in November 2019. It was one of the first cloud software companies to be certified carbon neutral by the Australian government's Climate Active programme in March. Xero recorded about 12,100 metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent for the year ending March 2020, the majority of which came from air transportation – a very simple area for organisations of any size to address through policy adjustments. Xero, for the most part, purchases offsets to such emissions.
For Xero, this entails moving beyond long-term offset purchases in order to obtain the right to claim carbon neutrality. Experts are looking at other things like the supply chains and ensuring that they are collaborating with firms like Amazon who are also making commitments in this arena. The majority of Xero's software applications are hosted by Amazon Web Services, which has pledged to run entirely on renewable energy by 2025. Microsoft, on the other hand, has established a science-based goal for lowering emissions in its Azure cloud data centres.
Using offsets as a means of claiming carbon neutrality is no longer unique, Xero, on the other hand, chose projects with major conservation elements. The Fishermans Bay Permanent Forest Sink Initiative in New Zealand, for example, is fully sponsored by Xero until at least March 2024. Aside from the credits it may claim, the company is helping to maintain habitat for a yellow-eyed penguin sanctuary and weed control, among other things. Each project unit equals one metric tonne of CO2e sequestered. In addition, Xero purchases gold-certified carbon credits from the Indonesian Katingan Peatland Restoration and Conservation Project. Five critically endangered, eight endangered, and 31 vulnerable species call the initiative home, including 5-10 percent of the world's Bornean orangutan, proboscis monkey, and southern Bornean gibbon populations.
Xero empowers sustainability "heroes" in each location to capitalize on local assets and goals. It established a two-way communication channel utilising the Slack messaging platform, as well as a steering committee of regional leaders to act on suggestions as needed.
