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Charles River Laboratories Announces Contract with Repsol

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  • By 2023, 90% of all global electricity for Charles River will be supplied by renewable energy

Charles River Laboratories International, Inc. (NYSE: CRL) today announced a wind energy contract with Repsol to address the entirety of the Company’s European power requirements with renewable energy by 2023.

Charles River has entered into a virtual power purchase agreement (VPPA) with Repsol, a multi-energy company, for wind energy in Spain. The contract is for 30.5 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy, which is equivalent to avoiding carbon emissions from the annual electricity consumption of more than 28,000 homes.

“As a global organization, we feel a significant responsibility to care for our planet. I am proud of the progress we’ve made in recent years to reduce our climate impact, and look forward to this next phase of our energy strategy.”
Birgit Girshick, Corporate Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer at Charles River

The VPPA is associated with a wind farm that is part of Repsol's Delta II project. Repsol continues to promote its low carbon generation business through the development of quality and profitable renewable assets. The project has already begun construction and, once completed in 2023, will have a total capacity of 860 MW distributed among 26 wind farms located in the Spanish region of Aragon. Renewable power generation is one of the pillars of Repsol's decarbonization strategy. As a result, Repsol recently raised its installed capacity targets for 2030 to 20 GW, an increase of 60% over the previous target. By 2025, installed capacity will increase to 6 GW.

This VPPA is the second of Charles River’s recent sustainability announcements related to renewable electricity—in June 2021, Charles River announced a solar contract to address the entirety of its North American electric power requirements. That project is also on track to begin providing Charles River with renewable energy benefits by 2023. As a result of the two VPPA’s, Charles River anticipates that 90% of all its global electricity will be supplied by renewable energy by 2023. 

“After recently executing a long-term solar energy contract in North America, we’re pleased to see Charles River expand its renewable energy procurement efforts into Europe. Congratulations to the company on advancing its 2030 sustainability goals.”
Philippe Diez, Partner Sustainability Business Division Europe for Schneider Electric

Schneider Electric, the leading advisor on corporate renewable energy procurement globally, supported Charles River in the selection of and negotiations for the project. To learn more about Charles River’s sustainability efforts visit its Corporate Citizenship page.