The David & Lucile Packard Foundation has announced its commitment to achieving net-zero carbon emissions of its organizational operations by 2040.

The commitment is part of the foundation’s long-term effort to reduce its carbon footprint—in 2007, the foundation set a goal to reduce its carbon emissions by 15 percent by 2020. Due in part to the pandemic shifting work to a remote schedule, the foundation met and surpassed its goal in 2020.

Each year from 2014 to 2021, the foundation purchased carbon offsets through the Bonneville Environmental Foundation to mitigate its footprint. Beginning in 2022, the foundation shifted primarily to purchasing carbon capture through Climeworks, a carbon removal company that filters CO2 directly from the air and stores it underground using renewable energy.

“We’ve been working on climate solutions since 2008, and we know there is more work to do,” the foundation wrote in a statement. “Our net-zero commitment emphasizes our priority to reduce emissions now, with the tools available to us today, as well as innovate toward continued reductions in the future.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Weedezign)