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Advance Climate Solutions

Enhance our operations and capabilities to meet customer and community needs in the transition to a low-carbon future.

We believe we have a role to play in supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy and have been working towards advancing climate solutions on multiple fronts.

Advance Climate Solutions Goals

  • Commit to net-zero emissions by 2035 in alignment with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) 1
  • Enhance the management of climate-related risks and opportunities across our business
  • Pilot low-carbon product innovations, including carbon tracking and offset solutions, by the end of 2022
  • Provide at least $10 million to support initiatives, partnerships, and programs that address the adverse effects of climate change and pollution on communities from 2021 through 2025
  • Engage our colleagues in sustainability initiatives through the Green2Gether program
Footnotes
  1. American Express is following the methodology of the SBTi for our commitment to net-zero by 2035, which covers all Scope 1 and 2 emissions and a minimum of two-thirds of total Scope 3 emissions in conformance with the GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard.
Highlights
Advancing climate solutions

2021-2022 Progress & Highlights

  • Carbon neutral operations powered by 100% renewable electricity since 2018 1
  • Spent more than $150 million to develop facilities that have received green building certifications since 2019
  • $3.1M in grants pledged toward our $10 million philanthropic goal to back low-carbon communities by 2025
  • Set a goal to have the vast majority of plastic cards issued by American Express be made of at least 70% recycled or reclaimed plastic by the end of 2024
Footnotes
  1. Achieved carbon neutral operations for Scope 1 (direct emissions from sources owned or controlled by American Express), Scope 2 (indirect market-based emissions), and Scope 3 (waste and employee business travel, including third-party air, rail, and rental cars) emissions through renewable energy credits, carbon offsets, and reduced GHG emissions. Operations include all our managed facilities, field sites, and data centers. Managed facilities are individual properties operationally managed by our global real estate team and housing critical business functions. Field sites are individual properties that are not operationally managed by our global real estate team but directly by our business units. They are typically smaller sites, less than 30,000 square feet (including airport lounges, foreign exchange kiosks, and sales offices) that are owned or leased by American Express.

Minimizing Our Climate Impact

Advancing climate solutions starts with our own operations. Since 2018, we have been a CarbonNeutral® company, powered by 100% renewable electricity across our global operations.1 To build on these efforts, in 2021 we committed to net-zero emissions by 2035 in alignment with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

We are also working to enhance the management of our climate-related risks and opportunities across our business and became a formal supporter of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). In 2020 and 2021, we conducted a qualitative climate risk scenario analysis to assess physical and transition risks to our business related to climate change in alignment with the TCFD. Additionally, ESG risks–in particular climate risk–have been included as an emerging risk for the company and are part of our Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) framework.

Footnotes
  1. Achieved carbon neutral operations for Scope 1 (direct emissions from sources owned or controlled by American Express), Scope 2 (indirect and market-based emissions), and Scope 3 (waste and employee business travel) emissions through renewable energy credits, carbon offsets, and reduced GHG emissions. Operations include all our managed facilities, field sites, and data centers). For more detailed data on our consumption of electricity, renewable energy, and Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, please see the Environmental Performance Data Summary and Limited Assurance Statement of GHG Emissions in the Supporting Data section of our 2021-2022 ESG Report.
Climate building

LEED New Construction Gold Certified data center in North Carolina

esg-report
For more information on our Advance Climate Solutions goals and initiatives, refer to our 2021-2022 ESG Report.
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