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Gojek reports 1.04m tons of C02e in 2020, aims for 2030 net zero
The country's first decacorn aims to phase out all fossil fuel-powered vehicles and replace them with electric vehicles to fulfill its 2030 net zero goal; a tall order, since it does not own the vehicles its drivers use.
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n-demand services and e-payment superapp Gojek has submitted self-reported emissions for 2020 totaling 1.04 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) in its first step toward achieving net zero emissions by 2030.
Of the total figure, 94.7 percent of emissions came from the company’s logistics and transportation service brands like GoRide, GoCar and GoFood, which were powered by an armada of millions of fossil fuel-powered vehicles, according to Gojek’s first annual sustainability report.
The second largest contributor to Gojek’s carbon footprint was 53,794 CO2e from goods and service purchases.
The sustainability report was prepared according to the standards of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), among the top two sustainability reporting standards organizations in the world.
“As a company, we have a very significant carbon footprint,” Gojek co-CEO Kevin Aluwi told a virtual press conference last Friday, May 30.
Indonesia’s first decacorn follows in the footsteps of global tech giants Apple, Microsoft and Amazon, which have all announced their commitment to net zero emissions in recent years, as member countries of the landmark Paris Agreement near their respective emissions deadlines.
Indonesia has committed to a nationally determined contribution (NDC) of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 29 percent under a business as usual (BAU) scenario by 2030.
Read also: Indonesia to cut emissions by 29 percent in 2030
Kevin said Gojek’s chief strategy for achieving net zero emissions was switching to a 100 percent electric vehicle (EV) fleet by 2030.
While the company acknowledged the financial challenges of making such a switch, it skirted reporters’ questions on how it might tackle the issue.
Electric motorcycles are roughly 1.5 times pricier than their fossil fuel-fired counterparts.
Read also: Consumer concerns hamper EV adoption in Indonesia: Experts
Kevin said that Gojek had trialed electric cars and motorcycles by partnering with automaker PT Toyota Astra Motor and electric motorcycle manufacturer PT Gesits Technologies Indo.
Continuing, he said the company was planning to achieve not just zero emissions by 2030, but also zero waste in a bid to improve the company’s environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) performance.
Gojek, which partners with around 900,000 merchants that are overwhelmingly small businesses, plans to reduce the waste it produces by first focusing on single-use plastics, its largest contributor. Plastic packaging is primarily used by GoFood merchants for raw ingredients, premade meals and takeouts.
The company claimed it had avoided producing more than 13 tons of waste from single-use plastics through a paid cutlery program between August 2019 and December 2020. It also distributed over 67,000 reusable delivery bags to its “partner drivers”.
Lany Harijanti, the regional program manager for GRI ASEAN, cautioned that it would be challenging for Gojek to align its drivers, merchants and consumers to the company’s sustainability goals because it did not legally own the polluting assets, particularly its drivers’ motorized vehicles.
“It will be difficult where it matters, which is more in the first tier: the consumers,” said Lany. “What will be difficult is bringing drivers to the three zeros [of emissions, waste and barriers], food merchants [as well as] consumers to zero waste.”
