Oil and Gas Scope 3 emissions (Below) Schneider Electric is committed to being efficient with resources at all stages of its supply chain
Tackling the
Scope 3 emissions
challenge Climate goals will not be reached without tackling Scope 3 emissions, says Xavier Denoly, Sustainable Development SVP at Schneider Electric – the company at the top of this year’s global league of green firms
T
o keep global warming below 1.5˚C, we all need to do more. Modelling from the Schneider Electric™ Sustainability Research Institute highlights that we need to reduce global CO2 emissions by three to five times more than the amount governments have currently committed to by 2030. Otherwise, meeting the Paris Agreement risks becoming perilously out of reach. Scope 3 (indirect non-electricity) emissions span both the upstream and downstream value chain (see Figure 1). They also include other sources of indirect emissions, such as business travel and employee commutes,
waste management and product end-of-life, and franchises and investments. They represent the largest share of most organisations’ carbon footprints, yet only a minority of companies currently have commitments to tackle them. According to the World Wildlife Fund’s Power Forward 4.0 report, less than one in five (91) Fortune 500 companies have a climate goal that covers indirect emissions across their value chain. Scope 3 emissions are hard to measure, calculate and address – so it is unsurprising that many organisations do not know where or how to start. However, to reach net-zero emissions and avoid the worst impacts of
climate change, all companies must bring their Scope 3 impact into focus as a part of their decarbonisation strategies.
Journey to sustainability Schneider has been on this journey for more than 15 years. Sustainability is at the heart of everything the company does and has been a driver for innovation and revenue growth. We calculate our impact, set goals, measure reductions and report our progress publicly every quarter (in line with our financial reporting). Each time we achieve targets, we set new ones. The company has reduced its operational footprint by 60%, and 80% of the electricity used across the entire global business is renewable. We have saved or avoided 302MT CO2e for our customers, and by 2025 the target is to have saved or avoided 800MT CO2e. The company has also created the Zero Carbon Project, working with 1,000 suppliers in our supply chain to help them halve emissions by 2025. The business has more than 130,000 employees operating in over 100 countries. We manufacture products, ship them worldwide and work with customers in some of the hardest-to -abate sectors, such as oil, gas, mining, heavy industry, manufacturing, transport and construction. Earlier this year, we were proud to be ranked as the world’s most sustainable company by Corporate Knights, proving that business and organisational complexity is not a roadblock to ambitious climate action. Attitude and culture also have a role in delivering an organisation’s climate ambitions. Sustainability is complex and difficult to scale. There is no well-trodden path to follow, and there is not yet a solution
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