Ravi Annapragada of Carrier speaks with interviewer Sara Gutterman about the HVAC manufacturer's four-pillar roadmap to net zero: electrification, lower-GWP refrigerants, digitally managed green electricity, and sustainable materials. He also explains how the company's environmental product declarations give specifiers lifecycle transparency on emissions, energy, water, and material content.
00:00:02:13 - 00:00:27:11
Sara Gutterman: Ravi, thank you so much for being here with me today. It's lovely to have an opportunity to talk with you. And congratulations to carrier on your Eco Leaders accolade. It's well deserved. I know that carrier is doing a lot of innovative things with respect to reducing your carbon footprint and providing environmental product declarations reconvenes for your products, and we'll get to that in a minute.
00:00:27:11 - 00:00:54:03
Sara Gutterman: But first, I'd like to start just with some high level observations. The building industry is really decarbonizing across the entire value chain, from low carbon products and reduced emissions manufacturing processes all the way through to builders really focused on reducing their embodied and operational carbon for their products. So how is carrier participating in that this transformation on a high level carrier?
00:00:54:04 - 00:01:38:23
Ravi Annapragada: We believe we have the moral imperative for climate action, as HVAC accounts for 40% of the emissions from buildings. Internally, we have set ambitious greenhouse gas reduction goals, including a target to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. These goals have been validated by the Science Based Targets initiative as well. We are actually running ahead of our goal to help our customers avoid more than a gigaton of carbon emission savings by 2030, and we are actually doing this by upping our R\&D investments to Covid by 2030.
00:01:38:25 - 00:02:17:17
Ravi Annapragada: So we've already saved our customers more than 400 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions so far. To truly achieve this, we put together a clear roadmap to get to net zero. This is built on four pillars to meet these ambitious targets. The first ones through electrification, especially of our heating systems. And then the second ones to reduce the refrigerant related greenhouse gas emissions by switching to lower GWP refrigerants.
00:02:17:19 - 00:02:44:25
Ravi Annapragada: The third and key important part is to make sure that the electricity that we're using is green. So digitally enabled energy management solutions, which which can actually optimize the carbon footprint of the electric systems is key. And the fourth ones around sustainable materials, making sure that we are using green materials in our well in our manufacturing process.
00:02:44:26 - 00:03:05:28
Sara Gutterman: Now, the meticulous specification for low carbon products is essential if we're going to reach a net zero carbon built environment and environmental product declarations, or are playing a pivotal role in this transition. So tell me about careers products with what makes them special, and why should building confessionals and consumers pay attention.
00:03:06:00 - 00:03:39:13
Ravi Annapragada: At cardio? We aim to provide the best products for not just our customers, but for the environment as well. And one important way to show that is through having transparency of the lifecycle impact of our products on the environment. So that's why we we do that through environmental Product Declaration, KPBS and in Europe to product. And we're on main profiles which are ISO 14025 compliance.
00:03:39:16 - 00:04:04:14
Ravi Annapragada: We have created around 48 total CPGs across brands spanning a wide range of product families. Through this, we can help customers make informed purchasing decisions and provide transparency around the impact of our products on greenhouse gas emissions, energy usage, water consumption and also the material content.
00:04:04:16 - 00:04:21:05
Sara Gutterman: There's a lot of regulatory transition in your category, particularly around those refrigerants. So can you talk about that a little bit? What's happening and how is that kind of taking the whole sector towards more sustainable end product.
00:04:21:07 - 00:05:12:13
Ravi Annapragada: Refrigerants when they leak into the atmosphere, basically cause greenhouse gas emissions? Normally they are a huge there's a huge multiplier on the carbon footprint. And moving to lower GWP represents is being mandated across the globe in line with the Kigali Agreement. And as we transition to lower growth, represents we need to not only balance the direct effect of these greenhouse gas emissions, which we call as direct emissions, but also we should keep in mind the indirect emissions, because as you change the represent, the efficiency of the system also changes.
00:05:12:14 - 00:05:19:19
Ravi Annapragada: So we need to balance both direct emissions and indirect emissions as we are making decisions choices in the future.