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2007 Corporate Social Responsibility Report

Corporate Responsibility
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Our primary tool for lowering Sun's carbon footprint is to reduce our energy consumption. Electricity use accounts for 90% of our GHG emissions, so reducing our consumption is the most significant way we can effect a change in our footprint. We're considering different ways to achieve our goals for GHG emissions reductions. Our goal is to introduce a companywide GHG management plan by the end of fiscal 2008. As part of this work, we're continually reviewing the use of alternative energy and carbon offsets.

Alternative Energy Strategy

Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power produce much less carbon dioxide than energy produced by burning coal, oil, or natural gas. Today, a small portion of the electricity supplied to Sun from the electricity grid is from renewable sources. One of our goals is to increase the amount of renewable energy we consume. We're developing an alternative energy strategy that includes:

  • Generating solar power on site (we plan to be up and running on some sites by the end of the 2007 calendar year)
  • Pursuing opportunities to purchase renewable energy directly from electricity producers (where we have power substations)
  • Investigating other options, such as running our emergency generators on biofuels or combined heat and power (CHP) systems

Carbon Offsets

We've engaged in a great deal of internal and external debate about whether or not Sun should buy offsets to help us reach our GHG reduction goals, and the discussion is by no means over. For now, we've decided not to use offsets as a major component of our carbon management plan.

Why? Because we believe that our resources can be better put to use by investing in our own energy-efficiency and carbon-reduction projects. We've only begun to reap the benefits of such investments and intend to continue this approach for the foreseeable future.

We may decide at some point to purchase offsets to reduce GHG emissions arising from certain aspects of our business, such as business travel. While we're making efforts to reduce travel, it's unlikely to disappear completely from our day-to-day operations. We're a global company with employees and customers all around the world, and we'll continue traveling to meet with them face to face. We have not yet made any corporate purchases of offsets for emissions from business travel, although we know some employees have done so themselves.

    Carbon offsetting is neutralizing the effect of a company's or individual's GHG emissions by reducing emissions elsewhere. Carbon offsets are voluntary in the U.S. and are usually arranged by specialist carbon offset providers. A wide variety of methods are used to create the reductions. Tree planting was initially the mainstay of carbon offsetting, but financing renewable energy and energy conservation projects that would not otherwise have taken place are now widely considered more effective. Emissions trading schemes are also growing in number. In these schemes, companies are allocated credits for the emissions they're expected to produce. If their emissions are lower, they can sell the leftover credits to companies that have exceeded their allowance.