Edison Energy, an energy advisory firm working to empower companies to overcome the challenges of reducing carbon and cost, and RENEW Energy Partners, a firm dedicated to speeding carbon reduction by making it financially compelling, established a $50 million fund for decarbonization efforts aimed at suppliers within the auto industry.
The announcement comes on the heels of the launch of Accelerate℠, an innovative flexible funding program funded by RENEW Energy Partners. The new endeavor will make progress towards decarbonizing the commercial, industrial, and institutional markets via flexible funding structures including PPAs and Energy-as-a-Service agreements for various behind-the-meter carbon reduction projects.
“Edison has long served some of the world’s largest automakers,” Edison Energy CEO Oded J. Rhone said in a statement. “Those clients have come to us recognizing that to achieve their sustainability goals, they must drive deep decarbonization throughout their supply chains, which can contribute more than 80% of the vehicle’s embodied greenhouse gas emissions. We want to remove as many barriers as possible for suppliers to engage with their customers and reduce emissions, and we believe that our partnership with RENEW will help achieve this.”
Edison has developed a robust supply chain program to help suppliers decarbonize and is pulling in partners to drive this effort. Manufacture 2030 (“M2030”) has a well-established presence in the space, working with several auto manufacturers and their suppliers to ease the collection and sharing of data. Along with the ability to streamline this process, M2030’s platform is also able to identify energy efficiency measures at the site level using artificial intelligence and provide glide path reporting on progress towards environmental targets.
Automotive leaders like Honda have been working with suppliers to reduce supply chain carbon emissions. Honda has been working to green its supply chain through a variety of initiatives, including partnerships with Edison and M2030 that help suppliers identify and move energy efficiency and renewable energy projects to implementation. However, suppliers often cite the cost of capital on projects as a roadblock to implementation. The funding partnership with Edison and RENEW is seen as a first step towards removing these barriers.
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