TD Bank: A Sustainability Success Story
It’s an understatement to say that TD Bank Group’s pursuit of sustainability has been excellent.
Since it joined the EPA Green Power Partnership in 2010, the company has set increasingly rigorous year-over-year sustainability standards for itself. It’s commitment to continuous improvement and sustainable innovation has set TD apart from other financial services organizations, and has earned it the top spot among EPA-ranked U.S. financial institutions for green power use. In 2010, TD Bank’s commitment to environmental leadership led it to become the first North American based bank to be carbon neutral, a status it has maintained for the past six years. The bank now sources renewable energy to the equivalent of 100% of the electricity it uses in its U.S., Canadian, and international portfolio —including retail outlets, operations, and ATMs.
Tiered Strategy
TD’s three-step approach to carbon neutrality first emphasizes energy efficiency, as the greenest energy is that which is never used. Initiatives such as greening its real estate portfolio, adopting green IT practices and decreasing business travel reduce the company’s baseline energy use. Last year, TD completed several large energy savings projects, including an upgrade to LED lighting for all parking lot lights at the TD Bank Center in Springfield, MA.. The company also undertook a lighting retrofit project to replace exterior lights with LEDs at over 700 stores across its footprint for an estimated $3.5 million in annual savings.
The second and third steps of TD’s carbon neutral approach are to green its energy supply by generating renewable energy and purchasing renewable energy credits (RECs), and then to invest in innovative carbon offsets.
TD has onsite solar installations at 124 of its sites across North America. These installations produce approximately 42,327 MWh of renewable energy annually, avoiding $676,000 in utility expenses. In addition, Since 2010, TD has invested more than $5M in RECs for a total of more than 2 million MWh of clean, renewable energy.
TD Bank ensures that the carbon offsets it uses mitigate travel and other non-electricity related emissions sourced from North American projects, at least half of which have social value (e.g., benefits for local partners such as schools and indigenous communities). In the company’s quest to achieve carbon neutrality, TD has retired almost 245,000 carbon offsets from a variety of landfill gas projects throughout the eastern United States, as well as over 560,000 carbon offsets in Canada. To put this in perspective, the total amount of carbon TD has offset since 2010 is roughly equivalent to the CO2 emissions released from burning over 850 million pounds of coal!
TD has proven that creativity and strategy go a long way for a company’s reputation. The bank has led the way in sustainable finance and is an exemplar of driving value to the bottom line using renewable energy and sustainability measures.
To learn more about TD Bank’s sustainability initiatives, follow this link to access their 2015 sustainability report. Get in touch with Schneider Electric today to find out how your company can use green power to follow in the footsteps of sustainability leaders like TD Bank.