Johnson & Johnson Vision to power global HQ with 100% solar electricity

Johnson & Johnson Vision, the manufacturer of ACUVUE contact lenses, has signed a ten-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with a solar farm to cover 100% of the electricity consumption of its headquarters.


Johnson & Johnson Vision to power global HQ with 100% solar electricity

Image: Johnson & Johnson Vision

The deal is between Johnson & Johnson Vision and JEA – a community-owned utility provider located in the same town as the corporate’s headquarters, Jacksonville, Florida.

Under the PPA, Johnson & Johnson will procure electricity from JEA’s portfolio of ground-mounted solar farms from 2022. JEA operates eight major solar arrays in the surrounding area and planning to increase its generation capacity to up to 300MW by the end of next year.

Johnson & Johnson Vision said in a statement that the deal puts it on track to meet its 2025 goal of meeting all global electricity consumption with 100% renewables. The firm’s Vistakon production site in Limerick, Ireland, already uses 100% wind power. Part of the facility’s demand is met with on-site turbines.

More broadly, parent company Johnson & Johnson is targeting carbon-neutral operations globally by the end of 2030.

Johnson & Johnson Vision’s progress on this goal to date, aside from sourcing renewable electricity, has included making manufacturing more energy-efficient, recycling 90% of unused materials from manufacturing sites and switching from air to ocean freight. This latter move has reduced carbon associated with transport by 13% to date and, once expanded in 2021, the reduction will increase to 35%.

Renewable PPAs made in the US in 2019 totalled 16GW, up from 10GW in 2018, according to the RE-Source Platform. A similar analysis from Bloomberg NEF concluded that a 40% global year-on-year increase in corporate clean energy procurement was led by action in the US. Big names in this space, aside from Johnson & Johnson, include McDonald’s USA, Facebook, Amazon, PepsiCo, Google, Target, Disney, Citi and General Motors (GM).

Business Stream

In related news, UK-based water retailer Business Stream has pledged to deliver a 20% year-on-year reduction in its absolute carbon emissions.

The firm said that plans for tackling operational emissions will involve a review of the vehicle fleet and the business travel policy, largely to maintain some of the emissions reductions witnessed as a result of lockdown restrictions. As for Scope 3 (indirect) emissions, new measures will be developed to engage with contractors and suppliers.

“Our new carbon reduction pledge demonstrates that we’re doing more than simply talking about net-zero, we’re pro-actively taking steps to significantly reduce our environmental impact,” Business Stream’s chief executive Jo Dow said, alluding to parent company Scottish Water’s 2040 net-zero target.

“We know it’s an ambitious target, but we have a responsibility to our customers, our people and the communities we operate within to play our part in helping to protect the planet.”

Last week, dozens of companies marked Earth Day (22 April 2021) by making new commitments on emissions and renewable energy. You can read edie’s round up of all the big announcements here.

Sarah George

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