Sustainability leader ramps up ESG strategy

Energy management and automation company Schneider Electric has begun to implement its new Schneider Sustainability Impact programme for 2021 to 2025, in the hopes of significantly accelerating its progress to being a more sustainable company.

The programme is built on six long-term commitments, which are set to deliver on each of theUnited Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

These commitments are advocating for a climate-positive world, resources efficiency, living up to the company’s trust principles, creating equal opportunities, harnessing the power of all generations, as well as empowering local communities.

“Our vision of sustainability is holistic and ecosystemic, as it covers all environmental, social and governance (ESG) topics and addresses all stakeholders,” says Schneider Electric sustainable development & academy for Anglophone Africa cluster director Zanélle Dalglish.

She adds that although the new programme only started earlier this year, the company’s objective is to reach all of the commitments within the projected period.

The company had initially planned on completing the commitments within a three-year period but decided to extend the timeframe to five years to implement more challenging and bolder programmes, in alignment with existing twenty-first Conference of the Parties commitments to 2025, Dalglish adds.

In 2019, the company measured that its revenues from offers that bring energy, climate or resource efficiency to its customers reached70%, owing to its EcoStruxure solutions and its Energy & Sustainability Services, which offers leading sustainability software and services to the global marketplace.

“Our next goal is to reach 80% green revenues by the end of 2025,” she highlights.

She stresses that Schneider Electric’s offerings will be more effective in bridging carbon dioxide efficiency and digitisation to help customers decarbonise their operations.

Top Spot

The announcement of Schneider Electric’s sustainability strategy coincided with the news thatCorporate Knights has ranked Schneider Electric as number one in its annual index ofthe Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations for 2021.

Corporate Knights is a Canadian media and research company producing rankings and financial product ratings based on corporate sustainability performance. Schneider jumped from twenty-ninth position in 2020 to first position for 2021 in the company’s index.

This ranking represents an important external recognition of Schneider Electric’s early and sustained commitment to ESG issues. It also highlights the company’s transformation into a leading provider of digital solutions that facilitate energy efficiency and sustainability.

“The core of our strategy is to build a sustainable business and company. Customers, employees, partners and investors have never been more focused on ESG considerations than they are now,” says Schneider Electric chairman and CEO Jean-Pascal Tricoire.

Schneider Electric has long embraced ESGs and keeps raising the bar for the company, its clients and partners, he notes.