ENGIE joins WEF’s First Movers Coalition

Germany multinational ENGIE has joined the First Movers Coalition as a founding member to play a key role in decarbonising the global economy and energy industry.

The First Movers Coalition is a cross-sector initiative established by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and John Kerry, the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, and to support the development and deployment of green technologies.

The coalition aims to strengthen the demand and supply of low-carbon technologies that are crucial in delivering the energy transition and achieving zero emissions by 2050.

“Roughly 50% of the technologies we need for net-zero emissions by 2050 are still under development, in the prototype or demonstration phases, and not yet available on the market,” according to the First Movers Coalition and as such will work to make these technologies available and at a lower cost in the next decade.

The coalition will focus on eight hard-to-abate sectors including energy generation, aviation, shipping, trucking and steel. ENGIE plans to leverage expertise from the coalition to deploy 4GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030, thereby decarbonising its operations in line with regulatory and consumer demands.

Catherine MacGregor, ENGIE CEO, said her firm will contribute its experience in the energy transition and industrial activities to support “the development of competitive net-zero supply chains at scale. Joining this cross-sectoral coalition is one more step in ENGIE’s longstanding commitment to net zero and is in line with the Group’s purpose to accelerate the energy transition.”

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Other members of the coalition include Bank of America, Orsted, Maersk, Vattenfall, Amazon and Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy which will provide funding for the development, testing and implementation of green technologies.

The International Energy Agency, the Climate Group, the Energy Transitions Commissions and the Rocky Mountain Institute are also members of the coalition.

Børge Brende, President of the World Economic Forum, said: “Technology has given us the tools to reduce our emissions and build a stronger and more inclusive economy of the future. For innovators and investors to play their part in tackling the climate crisis, they need clear market demand. The First Movers Coalition will leverage the collective purchasing power of leading companies and drive the need for these technologies. I call on business leaders to work with us and be the role models keeping our climate goals alive.”

John Kerry, US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, adds: “In this critical decade, we not only need to deploy as rapidly as possible existing clean energy technologies, such as wind turbines, solar panel, and battery storage but also drive innovation for our long-term decarbonization goals.”