Autodesk focuses on greenhouse-gas reduction

Autodesk has developed a methodology for corporate greenhouse-gas (GHG) target setting.

Autodesk developed the Corporate Finance Approach to Climate-Stabilising Targets (C-FACT) to align its own GHG reduction targets with global scientific and policy climate stabilisation targets.

In measuring its GHG emissions, Autodesk aims to lead the field in taking responsibility not just for direct emissions, but also for a wide range of indirect emissions including business travel, leased facilities, employee commuting, major conferences, and data center vendors.

These are all included under Autodesk's new GHG target.

Autodesk has committed to C-FACT through to 2020, as well as performance reports against the stated target at the close of each fiscal year (FY).

Using the new methodology calculation to set targets for FY10, Autodesk will aim to reduce its absolute emissions by 4.52 percent compared to FY09, translating to 3,756 metric tons of GHG.

Between FY08 and FY09, Autodesk's total GHG footprint increased by one percent.

This increase in emissions was accompanied by a significant increase in contribution to gross domestic product (GDP), so Autodesk's carbon intensity per unit of added value dropped.

Carbon intensity also dropped per employee (by nine percent) and per square foot (by five percent) between those two years.

To further its understanding of indirect emissions upstream and downstream, Autodesk's Sustainability Initiative recently undertook a carbon footprint of AutoCAD software.

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