Climate Action
Climate action
Some of the most significant risks to our safety system are emerging from climate change. In fact, every technology we regulate is being impacted by the climate crisis.
That's why we are focused on making the safety system more resilient to climate emergencies. This includes preventing damage to equipment before a disaster and supporting people and communities after a climate catastrophe.
We are also working to be part of climate action solutions by supporting electrification of buildings and transportation systems, and alternate future energy sources, and reducing our own energy and greenhouse gas emissions.
We recognize that climate change inequitably impacts people and communities. Indigenous communities and underserved and economically marginalized groups are more likely to experience harsher impacts from climate events, have less access to climate solutions, and could often have less access to safety. Through our climate action work, we seek to integrate equitable access to safety into our solutions to improve the wellbeing of everyone. We do this work in partnerships with Indigenous communities, utilizing both Western-Eurocentric and Indigenous knowledge systems.
Our climate action plan includes:
- collecting data on hazards related to extreme weather events;
- assessing emerging risks from gradual changes to the climate over the lifecycle of technologies;
- understanding how to aid in recovery after climate events; and
- enabling the safe adoption of new types of equipment through regulation and other approaches.
Our plan sets transparent, measurable activities and targets in key areas, including but not limited to:
Goal: Preventing safety incidents & hazards related to climate change for the technical systems & equipment that we regulate
Measure and target: We will implement a process to identify climate change as a factor in incidents and measure the number of technical safety risks that are caused or made worse by climate change, so that we can reduce this number.
Goal: Preventing disproportionate technical risks and negative impacts of climate change on Indigenous communities and other underserved communities & groups
Measure and target: We will expand our outreach to develop relationships in key communities and report how we are doing this.
We will implement a process to identify if climate change is a factor in incidents, then report a description and number of incidents in order to reduce these incidents.
Goal: Reduction of energy consumption within the organization
Measure and target: We are tracking greenhouse gas emissions produced by our fleet vehicles and energy usage in our facilities to monitor and reduce our energy consumption.
We will implement and scale a low-emission vehicle pilot and be net-zero by 2050 for emissions from fleet and facilities.