30 June 2023 - Three leading companies from the tech, industry and pharma sectors join the European Corporate Leaders Group (CLG Europe), convened by the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, in support of a climate neutral economy.
Ursula Woodburn, Director, CLG Europe said:
“It is a great pleasure to welcome Workday, GSK and SSAB to the European Corporate Leaders Group. This move by three major global companies from different sectors is further evidence of the growth of business voices for ambitious climate and nature policies. It demonstrates how even in hard-to-abate industries there is proactive and positive support for climate action. We are looking forward to working with them to support the shift to climate neutral and nature positive economies in Europe and beyond."
Workday is a leading provider of enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources. Workday’s climate commitments include matching 100% of the electricity used at the company's global offices and data centers with clean, renewable sources, and providing its entire customer community with a carbon-neutral cloud. They have already achieved net-zero emissions across their offices, data centers, and business travel, and have set science-based targets in line with a 1.5-degree future. Most recently, Workday joined Frontier, an advance market commitment that aims to accelerate the development of carbon removal technologies. Workday moves from being an affiliate to a full member of CLG Europe.
SSAB is a Nordic and US-based global steel company with a leading position in high-strength steels and related services, that aims to offer fossil-free steel to the market in 2026, and to eliminate CO2 emissions from its operations in around 2030. The transformation of SSAB's Nordic production system alone will reduce Sweden's total CO2 emissions by around 10% and Finland's by about 7%.
SSAB’s fossil-free steel is built on technology being developed by HYBRIT (Hydrogen Breakthrough Ironmaking Technology), a joint initiative between SSAB, LKAB and Vattenfall to develop a fossil-free value chain for iron and steel production using fossil-free electricity and hydrogen, thus minimizing the carbon dioxide emissions throughout the value chain.
GSK is a global biopharma company with a purpose to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together. Addressing environmental impact is fundamental to this purpose. GSK looks broadly and deeply at the interconnections of climate, nature and health and has made commitments to a net zero, nature positive, healthier planet, with ambitious goals set for 2030 and 2045.
CLG Europe has a secretariat provided by the Brussels office of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and a cross-sectoral membership of influential European businesses working towards delivering climate neutrality and more sustainable economies. The three companies join existing members: ACCIONA, Amazon, Anglian Water, Ball, Cemex, Coca Cola European Partners, DSM, EDF, Eneco, Ferrovial, Hybrit, Iberdrola, Ingka Group, Interface, Lloyds Banking Group, Microsoft, ROCKWOOL, Salesforce, Signify, Sky, Stora Enso, Thames Water, Unilever and Velux.
