Greenhouse Gas Emissions

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We work toward a sustainable future by reducing GHG emissions in our worldwide operations, transportation fleets, and product manufacturing processes. We continually improve our reduction strategies to achieve our science-based targets to reduce our absolute Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 50% by 2030 from a 2019 baseline and reduce our Scope 3 GHG product use intensity metric of emissions per cooling ton by 55% over the same timeframe.

Our Vice President of Center for Energy Efficiency & Sustainability (CEES) oversees our emission reduction strategy and works with key senior leaders to help create annual goals, obtain science-based validation of our reduction targets, and track our progress towards our decarbonization efforts. Our operational emission reduction strategy is lead by the Vice President of Environmental, Health, and Safety who also monitors and reports on all of our internal progress and targets. Our strategic business units and individual operation locations adopt site-specific annual emissions reduction goals and monitor performance using the Benchmark ESG/Gensuite™ platform and customized Tableau GHG Dashboards and reports. Each location enters its monthly energy use and other activity data into the Gensuite™ platform, which calculates monthly emissions using physical properties and emissions factors. Trane Technologies follows an annual internal assurance process and conducts an internal audit to confirm the accuracy of our emissions calculations. We then use an independent third party to verify our Scope 1, 2, and 3 GHG emissions data. Read our 2021 assurance statement.

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Trane Technologies is investing in emissions reduction strategies across our operations so that we may achieve carbon neutrality in 2030 with minimal verified carbon offsets. Read more about our commitment to carbon neutrality.

In 2021, our Scope 1 and 2 market-based GHG emissions decreased by 32,455 metric tons CO2e compared to 2020. We have reduced our operational emissions intensity by 25% from a 2019 baseline, and we achieved a 16% reduction in absolute location-based GHG emissions from a 2019 baseline. Read more about our GHG emissions metrics in the ESG Data Center.

Refrigerant Emissions

Emissions from refrigerant loss accounts for approximately 55% of our Scope 1 GHG emissions. Hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants are especially potent GHGs that have 100 to 1,000 times higher global warming potential (GWP) than carbon dioxide . According to Project Drawdown, addressing HFC refrigerants is the number-one way to combat climate change. Trane Technologies has dedicated many years of innovation and advocacy to this issue. Our leaders were deeply engaged during the Kigali Accord negotiations. The Accord was signed by 170 countries just after the Paris Climate Accord, which committed signatories to reduce their use of HFC refrigerants.

Our manufacturing operations follow refrigerant management standards and work with the goal of eliminating leaks and reducing direct GHG emissions. In 2021, we updated our technical procedures to define key equipment specifications and outlined administrative controls that help reduce routine leaks and accidental losses at our manufacturing facilities. Through refrigerant management and the transition to low-GWP refrigerants, we have lowered our GHG emissions from refrigerant leaks by approximately 25% from a 2019 baseline.

Electricity Emissions

Trane Technologies commits to reducing our energy consumption by 10% by 2030 from a 2019 base year. We regularly examine our direct energy consumption at our factories and look for opportunities to improve our operational practices through low energy and lean manufacturing. We also continually optimize energy use across our enterprise by shifting to energy efficient and electric equipment. In 2021, we have made a 3% improvement in total energy efficiency from a 2019 baseline.

We have consistently made Scope 2 improvements by reducing our electricity use, contracting with power companies that only supply renewable electricity, installing on-site solar power generation systems, and by the delivery of Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) through virtual power purchase agreements (VPPAs). In 2021, we reduced our total Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions 18% by using renewable energy.

Fuel Emissions

In 2021, the fuel efficiency of our fleet remained relatively unchanged compared to 2020. Despite disruptions to vehicle supply chains, we continued modernizing our fleet by purchasing hybrid vehicles and operated over 450 by the end of 2021. Our Logistics Team continues to monitor technology and infrastructure advancements to plan for a shift to fully electric vehicles. In 2021, our fleet used 5.7 million gallons of gasoline and 5.4 million gallons of diesel fuel. Our fleet’s average fuel efficiency decreased slightly to 19.3 miles per gallon.

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The largest portion of our global carbon footprint comes from customer product use within Scope 3, which alone accounts for 90% of our total emissions. It therefore represents our biggest opportunity for emissions reduction efforts. That’s why we set a science-based target to reduce Scope 3 emissions by 55% per cooling ton as an intensity metric and created the Gigaton Challenge – to inspire the transition to advanced technologies that reduce emissions from product use. Our current progress is a 5.3% reduction in emissions per cooling ton for 2021 compared to our 2019 baseline. We also had our Scope 3 data and process assured by an external 3rd party. Three strategies implemented during our product development process help reduce our product use emissions:

In 2021, we enhanced our methodology for calculating Scope 3 product use emissions to include the variety of products and services we offer. We now include the several million products and services sold annually in our absolute emissions number. As a result, and to increase transparency, we adjusted our baseline year to 2019 and Scope 3 product use emissions to 363 million metric tons of CO₂e. We are proud to report that we achieved a 5.3% reduction in our Scope 3 product use emissions intensity metric, emissions per cooling ton. This shows that we are on track to achieve our science-based Scope 3 target. It also indicates steady progress towards the Gigaton Challenge with a reduction of 50 million metric tons of CO2e since 2019. Read more about our energy efficient and low emissions products.

Though they are comparably small, we also reduce our upstream and downstream distribution and transportation emissions through route optimization, fuel efficiency, and shipment utilization improvement projects with logistics partners. Read more about our Scope 3 emissions in the ESG Data Center and our logistics strategy.

The reduction strategies we use to meet our near-term science-based targets will continue to be crucial to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. Once we achieve carbon neutral operations and almost halve the emissions generated from customer use of our products in 2030, we will continue to invest in technologies to reduce and sequester any remaining emissions from our products, guided by the latest scientific climate change research.

We will also continue to refine our internal carbon pricing strategy for Scope 1 and 2 emissions. By assigning a price to a metric ton of carbon dioxide through our internal approach, we can better understand the economic impacts of our emissions on Trane Technologies. We expect to drive energy efficiency and decarbonization investments as we refine our calculations. Read more about carbon pricing in our CDP Climate response.