The purchase of energy from two wind farms will enable the company to outstrip their greenhouse reduction commitments by four years.
Through the annual purchase of a reported 1,000,000 megawatt hours (245MW) from the EDF Renewables Rock Falls Wind project in northern Oklahoma and the Santa Rita Wind Energy Center being built by Invenergy in West Texas the Kimberly-Clark Corporation will reduce emissions by 550 metric tonnes per year.
The deal relates only to the company’s North American manufacturing operations and will be operational in Oklahoma in 2017 and Texas in 2018.
Founded in 1872, Kimberly-Clark are a global supplier of personal and health care products, servicing 150 countries and 1.3billion customers daily.
Lisa Morden, global head of sustainability at Kimberly-Clark, said: “These agreements mark Kimberly-Clark’s first use of utility-scale renewable energy and are a step-change in our energy and climate strategy to reduce climate change impacts, improve operating efficiency and benefit cost savings.
“Adding wind-generated electricity to the energy mix will enable the company to achieve more than a 25 percent reduction in GHG emissions in 2018, which is four years ahead of the original 2022 target to reduce absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent from 2005 levels.
“These two renewable energy projects, combined with a number of other energy initiatives across the company, put Kimberly-Clark on-track to deliver significant multimillion dollar cost savings from energy and climate projects by 2022,” Morden said. “It’s a powerful demonstration of sustainability initiatives having both great environmental and business benefits.”
