We are striving to reduce our impacts on the planet including taking actions towards our climate-related goals of reducing carbon intensity by 1/3 by 2030 and achieving Net Zero by 2050. Additional details about our progress for the environment is available in our 2023 Sustainability Report.
Energy
Industrial gas manufacturing is energy intensive. Air Separation Units (ASUs) require electricity or steam to compress air so it can be cryogenically distilled into oxygen, nitrogen, and argon. Likewise, the production of hydrogen consumes natural gas, and in some cases refinery off-gas, as a feedstock and/or fuel in the production process. As a result, energy consumption is the most significant variable in the cost of our production processes. We carefully track and manage energy purchases and focus on continually improving energy efficiency across our plants, particularly larger facilities. In 2022, our energy consumption was consistent with prior year at 57.2 terawatt hours while production increased. The amount of renewable electricity we consumed increased to 29%.
Climate
Our
CO₂ emissions are driven by energy consumption. Because
CO₂e emissions represent our most significant environmental impact, we have set goals to invest billions in the energy transition, to reach net zero in our operations by 2050, and to reduce our carbon intensity. In 2022, we achieved a 5% reduction in Scope 1 and 2
CO₂e intensity and a 25% reduction in Scope 3
CO₂ intensity. We expect the reduction of our
CO₂ emissions intensity to accelerate in 2025 and beyond as we bring our blue and green hydrogen megaprojects onstream and continue working across the five areas related to our goal: carbon capture, carbon-free hydrogen, low-carbon projects, operational efficiency, and renewable energy. Our
CO₂e emissions were 16.8, 9.7 and 7.6 million metric tonnes for Scope 1, 2 and 3, respectively.