Climate change is real. The science is unambiguous and the need to act grows more urgent by the day. As a global company that connects more than 3 billion people across our apps every month, we understand the responsibility Facebook has and we want to make a real difference.
Every day we see our community confronting this challenge – from people making small but meaningful changes like recycling, turning off lights, using public transport or cycling, to those using our tools to organize for change in their communities or to raise more than $80 million for environmental causes.
Facebook’s global operations will achieve net zero carbon emissions and be 100% supported by renewable energy this year. But getting our own house in order is only the start. That’s why today, ahead of Climate Week, we are announcing a new Climate Science Information Center to connect people with science-based information, and an ambitious new net zero emissions target for our company’s value chain.
Climate Science Information Center
One of the biggest lessons we have learned from the COVID-19 pandemic is how powerful Facebook can be for connecting people to accurate, expert advice and information during a global crisis. Now, we are taking a similar approach to the climate crisis by launching a new Climate Science Information Center on Facebook to connect people to factual and up-to-date climate information. We have modeled the center and the information within it on our COVID-19 Information Center that has, so far, directed more than 2 billion people to information from health authorities, with more than 600 million people clicking through to learn more.
The Climate Science Information Center is a dedicated space on Facebook with factual resources from the world’s leading climate organizations and actionable steps people can take in their everyday lives to combat climate change. The Center will feature facts, figures and data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and their global network of climate science partners, including the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), World Meteorological Organization (WMO), The Met Office and others. We will also include posts from relevant sources to highlight climate science news.
The Center will launch in France, Germany, the UK and US to start and will roll out to other countries soon.
Net Zero Emissions for Our Value Chain
Beyond our goal of reducing our operational greenhouse gas emissions by 75% this year, we will achieve net zero emissions for our operations. We are also setting an ambitious goal to reach net zero emissions for our value chain – including emissions from suppliers and other factors such as employee commuting and business travel – in 2030. We are committing to the Science Based Target Initiative, aligning our corporate climate goals with the latest science. Over the next decade, Facebook will work to reduce carbon emissions from our operations and value chain, including by working with suppliers on their own goals, helping the development of new carbon removal technologies and making our facilities as efficient as possible.
Tackling Climate Misinformation
We’re committed to tackling climate misinformation. We partner with more than 70 independent fact-checking organizations globally, covering more than 60 languages. These fact-checkers can and do rate climate science content. As with all types of claims debunked by our fact-checkers, we reduce the distribution of these posts in News Feed and apply a warning label on top of these posts both on Facebook and Instagram so people understand that the content has been rated false.
Climate change is a crisis we will only be able to address if we all work together on a global scale. We are taking important steps to reduce our emissions and arm our global community with science-based information to make informed decisions and tools to take action. We hope these efforts demonstrate that Facebook is committed to playing its part and helping to inspire real action in our community.