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BPC Forms Net Zero Business Alliance Around Key 2050 Climate Goal

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Miki Carver

Washington, DC – The Bipartisan Policy Center today announced the formation of the Net Zero Business Alliance (NZBA), a group of leading companies from key sectors devoted to working with U.S. industry and policymakers to pursue net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The Net Zero Business Alliance believes that decarbonizing the U.S. economy is necessary, urgent, and profoundly challenging.

The founding corporations in the Alliance—Occidental, Southern Company, Tyson Foods, United Airlines and Weyerhaeuser—reflect a wide range of economic sectors. This group will be expanded in the coming weeks to additional sectors as future members are announced.

Vicki Hollub, president and CEO of Occidental, said: “We are delighted to be a founding member of the Net Zero Business Alliance and leverage our 40 years of carbon management expertise to enable our collective pathway to net-zero. Public and private collaboration is essential to the successful commercial-scale deployment of decarbonization technologies and investment in supporting infrastructure to expedite the energy transition.”

Tom Fanning, CEO of Southern Company, said: “The power sector is leading the way toward the ambitious but achievable goal of net-zero emissions. To realize this shared goal, industry leaders and policymakers must work together to dramatically expand technology innovation, accelerate new energy infrastructure, and ensure all Americans can share in the benefits of a clean-energy economy.”

The NZBA has been created to work with public and private stakeholders to develop the policies required for success, while at the same time recognizing that many individual companies, including some within the Alliance, may not yet be in position to make a net-zero commitment.

John R. Tyson, chief sustainability officer of Tyson Foods, said: “To have a healthy and enduring planet, we must have a food system that is both environmentally and socially resilient. This will require collaboration across industries and between public and private sector leaders. We commend the Bipartisan Policy Center for convening this group of business leaders as yet another positive step toward building a climate positive future.”

Achieving a net-zero economy will require major investments in advanced energy technologies, the development of new business models, and the utilization of carbon removal, among other approaches. The public and private sectors must actively collaborate on developing carbon solutions and new government policies that enable the transition to occur at a scale and speed unlike any prior industrial transformation.

Scott Kirby, CEO of United Airlines, said: “Last year, United made an industry-leading commitment to go 100% green by reducing our carbon emissions 100% by 2050 by investing in sequestration and other emerging technologies—instead of relying on traditional carbon offsets. We believe collaborating with other industries in addressing global climate change is imperative to reaching this goal and the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Net Zero Business Alliance will enable United to work with other member organizations to identify innovative public policies, investment strategies, and technological breakthroughs that will help reduce the speed of climate change.”

Russell Hagen, chief financial officer of Weyerhaeuser, said: “The combination of forests and wood products as carbon removal and storage solutions, coupled with emissions reductions, has significant opportunity to contribute to net-zero goals. We are excited to work cooperatively with partners within the Net Zero Business Alliance to lead on this front.”

The Alliance believes that decarbonizing the U.S. economy in 30 years requires: substantially increasing public-private investment in all forms of low-carbon energy innovation; dramatically accelerating the speed with which technologies are commercialized and built at scale; and designing rigorous and reliable approaches to remove carbon from the atmosphere.

“Getting major industries to achieve net-zero greenhouse emissions by midcentury will require resolving important technical, commercial, and political challenges,” said Sasha Mackler, director of BPC’s energy project. “The Net Zero Business Alliance is bringing together prominent business leaders who will offer an affirmative, pragmatic voice to the urgent climate solutions debate.”

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