eBay had no change in their carbon footprint data. eBay’s first GHG emissions reduction target was 15% against a 2008 baseline. Given the accelerated growth of the business since 2008, meeting that goal seems unlikely due to increased emissions from mergers and acquisitions as well as the demand for the energy it takes to sustain their growing business. The majority of their energy use comes from their data centers in Arizona and Utah. Although they’ve implemented an aggressive strategy to use alternative forms of energy, e.g., solar arrays, at these two locations, the rapid growth of their company will impede progress towards carbon reduction. Source
Environmental Vulnerabilities
eBay’s environmental vulnerabilities remained consistent with Q1 reporting. Given eBay’s position on carbon emissions, they have taken many steps to implement a strategy that attempts to compensate for their growing emissions by acknowledging their increased need to build energy efficient data centers. eBay has instituted a partnership with Bloom Energy to institute a new 6 Megawatt green fuel cell initiative at their Utah location and will be fully functional by mid 2013. This project is expected to drive carbon emissions down in the near future.
Environmental Strengths
While eBay’s environmental strength score went down slightly due to increased demand for power, their overall efforts in attempting to curb their energy pollution need to be noted. Their cooperation with the Environmental Defense Fund Climate Corps Fellows program was a key contributor in identifying, vetting, measuring and driving implementation for energy efficiency and emissions reduction initiatives and this cooperation should set up success in the future. Source (Accessed October 2012)
Other Insights
eBay, like most other companies issuing sustainability reports or responding to CDP questionnaires, should seize an opportunity to improve the usefulness of disclosures about carbon-related initiatives. Specifically, eBay’s disclosures would be more relevant if greater details about how “green” initiatives benefited shareholders and society.
eBay’s Green at eBay, Building a Greener Company page, (accessed October 2012) highlighted three areas, Employee buildings, Data centers and Clean energy innovation. The key projects under these topics are reducing material and water waste, using available cool, arid climate to cool data centers instead of energy intensive chillers, and installing solar arrays and Bloom fuel cells. The discussions do not include discussion of the economics of sustainability initiatives, that is, quantitative information on how eBay’s initiatives benefit society and shareholders. For example, no disclosure of benefits to society:
- Year to year decrease in CO2 emissions
- Year over year comparisons of CO2 emissions to targets
- Year to year changes in percent of energy from green (renewable) sources vs. energy form black (nonrenewable) sources
eBay’s disclosures do not quantify the benefits of “green” initiatives benefits to shareholders; no disclosure of:
- Year to year reduction in energy costs
- Cost reduction from more efficient business processes resulting from changing to renewable energy sources
- Pay back in dollars over period of time for energy saving projects
- Discussion of intangible value of future risk mitigation, employee engagement, trust and reputation
Finally, there is almost no connection between eBay’s Form 10-K (Risk Factors) and their website sustainability disclosures of significant projects/areas of concern to management. A similar pattern can found when comparing climate risks identified in eBay’s CDP questionnaire and the Form 10-K (Risk Factors).
