American Express Company 2015 Corporate Social Responsibility Report
Amex-CSR-Report-Full-2015
Amex-CSR-Report-Full-2015
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GRI INDEX<br />
Investing in clean power and<br />
green data centers<br />
<strong>2015</strong> HIGHLIGHTS<br />
Data centers are crucial to how we<br />
deliver the products and services our<br />
customers rely on. However, we know that<br />
the energy used to data storage has an<br />
impact on the planet we all depend on.<br />
Housing thousands of servers and our<br />
data storage and networking equipment<br />
accounted for nearly 35 percent of our<br />
total energy use in <strong>2015</strong>.<br />
As our business services expand, so<br />
will our need for data storage. We are<br />
finding ways to use energy as<br />
efficiently as possible.<br />
100 %<br />
of the electricity powering<br />
our headquarters in New York<br />
City and 65 percent of the<br />
electricity purchased to power<br />
our operations worldwide were<br />
carbon-free and came from a<br />
mix of wind, biogas, biomass<br />
and solar energy.<br />
Our U.S Data Centers offset<br />
100% of their electricity<br />
consumption through the<br />
purchase of renewable energy,<br />
on-site solar generation and<br />
renewable energy credits.<br />
Our U.S. Data Centers are<br />
certified for ISO 14001-2004<br />
and ISO 9001-2008, best-inclass<br />
environmental and quality<br />
management systems.<br />
In <strong>2015</strong>, we purchased nearly 174 million<br />
kilowatt-hours of green power. Much<br />
of this power came from purchasing<br />
renewable energy certificates (RECs) and<br />
on-site solar panels.<br />
<strong>American</strong> <strong>Express</strong>’ newest<br />
Information Processing Center<br />
in North Carolina is Leadership<br />
in Energy and Environmental<br />
Design (LEED) Gold Certified<br />
and incorporates solar and<br />
thermal energy.<br />
<strong>American</strong> <strong>Express</strong> Information<br />
Processing Center in Arizona<br />
is EPA Energy Star certified,<br />
consuming 35% less energy<br />
and generating 35% less carbon<br />
emissions than similar buildings<br />
in the U.S.<br />
In <strong>2015</strong>, we signed the <strong>American</strong> Business Act on Climate<br />
Pledge to show our support for a strong climate deal at<br />
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate<br />
Change meeting, COP21, in December <strong>2015</strong>. COP21<br />
resulted in The Paris Agreement, the world’s first globally<br />
binding treaty on climate change that took a strong step<br />
forward toward a low-carbon, sustainable future.<br />
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