By Sustainability team
6th May 2010.
10:42

Emissions targets: absolute vs. intensity based

Hi there. As some of you may have noticed in earlier blog post about climate goals, Sony Ericsson’s targets are based on absolute values rather than intensity based. The difference is that intensity targets define a reduction of emissions in relation to some other indicator, for example sales, while an absolute target define a pure level of emission reductions.

There is an ongoing debate about what type of target is to be preferred. An absolute target guarantees a real reduction of a particular quantity of GHGs, is more transparent and easier to evaluate for a third party, but it does not allow comparisons of GHG efficiency and it may reward companies for reducing its emissions even as a result of declining production. On the other hand, an intensity target reflect a company’s GHG performance independent of production output, but does not guarantee that the emissions of GHGs to the atmosphere will actually be reduced.

At Sony Ericsson, we chose to set absolute targets because we don’t think nature cares about how many phones we sell, or how much money we make. Nature cares about how much carbon we emit!

But to make it super clear for everyone, we will also let you know how we’re performing in relation to sales and production. That way, you can have the cake and eat it too. Enjoy!