Adobe Honors the Paris Agreement

This month, the United States government announced it would pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement. The agreement which was signed by 195 countries in 2015, is a global action plan to put the world on track to avoid climate change by limiting global warming.

Adobe has a long-standing commitment to operating our business sustainably, and those sustainability goals will remain in place. We firmly believe that fighting climate change brings significant economic, business, and public health benefits.

In response to the Paris Climate Agreement decision, Adobe along with several dozen other companies, signed our name to an open letter/full page advertisement urging the U.S. administration to remain in the Paris Agreement. We have also joined a long list of U.S., state, local and business leaders in an open letter, “We Are Still In,” to the international community and parties to the Paris Agreement.

Honoring the Paris Agreement aligns to our holistic approach to achieving our sustainability goals that involve our employees and operations, customers and products, and the communities where we work and live. We remain committed to the goals we set in 2015 before COP21 in Paris, and are pleased to provide an update.

  1. Energy: We joined RE100 when we pledged to power our operations and the digital delivery of our products entirely with 100% renewable electricity by 2035. We continue to explore renewable energy power purchase agreements (PPAs) as means to stabilize operational costs and power facilities with clean energy; our intention is to create additional renewable energy for the communities we are in. Given the progress we are making, we are hopeful we’ll reach this goal even sooner.
  2. Operations: Adobe was the first company to earn LEED Certification at the Platinum level in June 2006; today, 78 percent of employees sit in LEED certified workplaces. Additionally, we are a founding member of the US Green Building Council’s Building Health Initiative, choosing materials that minimize the effect on human health in all new construction and renovations.
  3. Water: Our major operations in California and India are vulnerable to prolonged droughts due to climate change, posing risk and added costs to our business. Since 2005, we’ve reduced overall water consumption by more than 60 percent, and will continue to deploy every conservation method possible throughout our operations.
  4. Waste: We employ aggressive waste management in all of our controlled buildings, resulting in a global diversion rate of 90%. The same resource strategy, processes and best practices apply to our leased sites.
  5. Collaboration: We partner, collaborate and push utilities whose grids we are on to develop sound, renewable energy strategies. As a founding member of BSR’s Future of Internet Power group, and an early signatory of the WWF/WRI Corporate Renewable Energy Buyers’ Principles – and subsequently the Rocky Mountain Institute Business Renewables Center – we know that the only way to move markets is by working together.
  6. Products: As a leading software developer, we look for ways to help our company and our customers consume fewer natural resources. For example, the use of Adobe Sign for over 46 million electronic document transactions saved more than 17 million pounds of wood and 53 million gallons of water in 2016 alone. Today, 98 percent of our software is electronically delivered, and we continuously work with our data center suppliers to increase the proportion that is powered with renewable electricity.

Last year, Adobe was named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) World. This leadership position commands a responsibility to encourage enterprises across all sectors to decrease their impact on the environment. We are inspired by the immediate response and collective commitment to the Paris Climate agreement, and look forward to continued collaboration to fight climate change.