Tencent, the gaming and social media behemoth, has become the latest Chinese internet business to make major pledges to address its climate effect, stating that “full carbon neutrality would be attained across its operations and supply chain” by 2030.
The document (in Chinese), headlined “A report on Tencent’s carbon-neutral targets and action roadmap,” was posted on February 24, supchina.com reports. It also notes the company’s pledge to contract green energy for all of its power use by the end of the decade.
Tencent, which owns the hugely popular Chinese messaging app WeChat as well as some of the world’s largest game development studios, stated that emissions would be reduced primarily by focusing on its massive data centers, which power the servers that run its services, and that it had already purchased 500 million kilowatt-hours of renewable energy this year.
Tencent claimed that on the consumer side of its business, it will assist promote climate advocacy and sustainable lifestyles in Chinese society by launching educational mini-programs on WeChat and free mobile games. Tencent also vowed to share its knowledge on low-carbon solutions with business partners and to assist the development of cutting-edge technologies that safeguard the planet in order to facilitate a low-carbon transition within the industry.
Meanwhile, Tencent stated that it has previously implemented a number of environmentally friendly practices in many sectors of its business, such as the development of green buildings and enabling some of its staff to work remotely.
According to an internal study, Tencent, as one of the world’s top data center operators, was responsible for 5.1 million tons of carbon dioxide last year, about one-tenth of what the entire city of New York released in 2020. Tencent’s emissions were mostly caused by infrastructure development and the acquisition of computer servers, with the remainder coming primarily from operational sources such as the usage of energy, heating, and cooling in office buildings and data centers.