Salesforce signs on as latest Principal Partner for COP26

COP26 is set to take place from 1 November to 12 November in Glasgow

The company joins Microsoft, SSE, ScottishPower, NatWest Group, National Grid, Sainsbury’s, Hitachi and Reckitt as Principal Partners, as well as Sky, the Principal Media Partner.

When the UK COP26 Unit first began seeking sponsors for the conference, which is taking place in Glasgow in November following a one-year delay as a result of Covid-19, it stated that it would only sign deals with companies with net-zero targets for 2050 or sooner. Sponsorship criteria also includes “credible short-term plans” to deliver against long-term climate targets.

Salesforce claims that it has already delivered a carbon-neutral cloud and operations. In a bid to drive further emissions reductions in-house and to reduce the use of carbon offsetting, the company has developed 1.5C-aligned targets, approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). These entail halving Scope 1 (direct) and 2 (power-related) emissions by 2030, against a 2018 baseline; halving Scope 3 (indirect) emissions from fuel and energy activities within the same timescale and supporting suppliers representing 60% of Scope 3 emissions to set their own targets in line with climate science by 2024.

In terms of promoting climate action more broadly, Salesforce is a member of the Business Ambition for 1.5C initiative, the Business Alliance to Scale Climate Solutions and the European Corporate Leaders Group (CLG Europe).

It has also added climate-related principles to its policy platform, which acts as a framework for policy engagement. One of the firm’s recent policy actions has been calling for mandatory climate risk disclosures from businesses in the US, where it is headquartered.  At the recent G7 summit, nations including the US agreed to follow the UK’s lead in implementing mandatory reporting in line with the recommendations of the global Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

COP26 President Alok Sharma said: “Salesforce’s support for the goals of the UK’s Presidency of COP26, long-standing climate advocacy and commitment to net-zero are helping to accelerate the global transition to a net-zero future and provide an example to others.”

The announcement from Salesforce comes shortly after edie launched the first edition of its new COP26 Action Tracker – a regular article series providing a regular temperature check of global climate action from nations and businesses in the run-up to the conference. Highlights in this edition include clarity on whether COP26 will take place face-to-face, the outcomes of the G7 Summit and the UK Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) recent major reports. You can read that article here.

You can read all of edie’s COP26-related content here.

Sarah George