LONDON: British drugmaker AstraZeneca on Wednesday announced it would invest US$400 million to plant over 200 million trees by 2030 as part of its strategy for reducing carbon emissions in line with the Paris Agreement.
The commitment represents about US$60 million a year, for one of the UK’s most valuable listed companies, which has a market capitalisation of about US$230 billion. AstraZeneca made about US$44 billion in revenue in 2022.
Still, the new sustainability commitment is far larger than past ones. In 2020, the company announced it would plant and maintain more than 50 million trees by the end of 2025.
AstraZeneca announced earlier this month it would switch to biogas produced from cow manure and food waste in the US, to cut its carbon emissions there.
Much of the global pharmaceutical and biotech industry has yet to set targets for reducing carbon emissions in line with the Paris Agreement, researchers have found.