VITEC Joins the UN Climate Neutral Now Pledge

VITEC has always been committed to making “green” choices as our company grew, but we have recently begun to take steps to quantify our commitment to customers and partners. As we looked at what other companies around the world were doing to support environmental initiatives, VITEC adopted initiatives that support our efforts to reduce our carbon footprint and have a positive environmental impact. As a Paris based company, I have been following the Paris Climate Change Agreement which was introduced to strengthen the global response to climate change by keeping global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Globally, that is a goal that benefits the world, but from the perspective of our company, it is hard to see how our “green” efforts could even make a measurable impact.

Fortunately, the United Nations launched the Climate Neutral Now initiative in 2015 to encourage individuals, governments, and organizations to act NOW to help achieve a climate neutral world by mid-century, as outlined in the Paris Agreement. By supporting the Climate Neutral Now initiative, VITEC has joined other organizations around the world in taking action today to help the planet tomorrow.

On June 15, 2020, VITEC joined the UN Climate Neutral Now Pledge and we are proud to be one of over 300 companies that have signed the global pledge. The list of pledges are from organizations large and small, across a broad spectrum from technology to sports. The Climate Neutral Now initiative provides a community for diverse organizations to come together with a common cause…help the Earth thrive.

The Climate Neutral Now pledge is a simple three step guideline for impacting carbon emissions in a positive way:

• Measure your individual or organization’s greenhouse gas emissions, commonly referred to as your “carbon footprint” to get a baseline and understand how it can be impacted.
• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible by adjusting how you conduct your business from product development, to manufacturing, to shipping, to office usage. Essentially, look at every aspect of your business to find ways to drive down your carbon impact.
• Compensate those areas in your carbon footprint that can be measured but cannot be reduced to zero. Realistically, zero carbon emissions are not possible, but those emissions that cannot be avoided can be offset by purchasing UN certified emission reductions, a type of carbon credit.

VITEC is wrapping up the process of measuring our carbon footprint and has already begun to take actions to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. It will be a journey, but it is important to me and to the global VITEC employees to reduce our carbon footprint and work toward saving our planet.