Net|Zero|Now for immediate climate protection
Continental offers customers direct carbon neutrality along the value chain.
With the global Net|Zero|Now program, customers can lighten their CO2 backpack by the portion generated by doing business with Continental. The initiative is an important step toward a carbon-neutral economy.
The road to carbon-neutral mobility and a carbon-neutral economy is both a sprint and a marathon – a mixture of measures that can be implemented quickly and longer-term, far-reaching changes. With Net|Zero|Now, our customers worldwide can use products, components, and systems from Continental today that are completely carbon-neutral, from material procurement to production and recycling at the end of the lifecycle.
An important step toward carbon neutrality with Net|Zero|Now
With the “Net|Zero|Now” immediate climate protection program, we are already offering customers with ambitious sustainability targets the opportunity to achieve carbon neutrality along the entire value chain for their business with Continental. The aim is to neutralize the remaining “CO2 backpack” from the relevant Continental businesses. These emissions are offset by an equal amount of so-called “negative emissions.”
The focus here is on Continental products for zero-emission vehicles. This includes, for example, electric cars and buses, but also hydrogen-powered trains or bicycles that do not produce harmful emissions in use. These vehicles are the only way to achieve truly emission-free and carbon-neutral mobility in the future. With Net|Zero|Now, this is already possible for these vehicles for Continental’s products, components and systems. They are not only emission-free in use, but also carbon-neutral for the value chain attributable to Continental.
The program is also offered for business with vehicles with combustion engines, and industry. This takes into account the increasingly ambitious carbon neutrality targets on the market.
Net|Zero|Now is an important complementary building block to the reduction measures already implemented to achieve carbon neutrality today and limit the global temperature increase, as called for in the Paris Climate Agreement, to a maximum of two degrees Celsius, or ideally 1.5 degrees Celsius. In addition, we are working to consistently further reduce our emissions, thereby continuously reducing the amount to be neutralized.
Neutralization through negative emissions
We use negative emissions for neutralization. They go beyond classic compensation measures because they remove CO2 from the atmosphere instead of just avoiding it. Negative emissions are an integral part of the net zero carbon footprint concept required by the Paris Climate Agreement. Carbon neutrality means that not more emissions are produced than are removed from the atmosphere. To achieve this, emissions need to be reduced to a minimum and existing emissions must be offset, so that ultimately the carbon footprint comes out at “net zero.” To achieve complete carbon neutrality for a product or business today, we calculate the CO2 emissions generated for the respective product. The calculation is based on the reported Scope 1, 2, 3 emissions according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. These calculated emissions are then neutralized by an equal amount of negative emissions.
For this step, we have joined forces with removal partners who offer recognized projects to neutralize emissions. We attach great importance to selecting only projects certified to international standards, which are long-term as well as multifaceted. Social aspects, the sustainability of the reductions, safeguards, such as in the event of wildfires, and other quality criteria also play a role in the selection process.