www.se.com Schneider Electric 18 2021 Climate Report 5.4 SF 6 Recovery services Sulfur hexafluoride (SF 6 ) is a gas with high dielectric (insulation) strength, and it has been widely used for building switchgear – especially medium voltage gear – for the past 30 years, as it allows to reduce the size of electrical gear. The electric power industry uses roughly 80 percent of all SF 6 produced worldwide, and the global installed base is still expected to grow by 75% by 2030. In 2013, Schneider Electric started offering its customers a seamless service for the removal and/or recycling of obsolete equipment called “SF 6 recovery services”. Today, recovery services are available in France and 10 other countries; the customer support is under development to propose a model adapted to the different markets in different countries all over the world. The ambition is to offer recovery services to any SF 6 Schneider legacy by 2025. The recovery service allows Schneider’s customers to dispose correctly of their machinery, against a green disposal certificate, thus granting them peace of mind. The service consists in collecting the equipment and, together with our partners, dismantle and reuse, recycle or dispose of all the components (such as metals or thermoplastics) appropriately. Specifically, SF 6 is extracted from machines and sent to a specialist company for regeneration and destruction. 5.5 Green information technology (IT) Considering digital acceleration increases the utilization of IT services, a challenge arises to decouple rising demand from environmental degradation. Bearing that in mind, Schneider Digital’s Green IT initiative prioritizes measuring and optimizing the environmental footprint of Schneider Electric’s information systems. An action plan has been implemented to optimize the environmental footprint of the various components of IT. The Group IT Asset Management (ITAM) Policy and standards have been updated with a strong focus on standardization, sustainability, and circular economy enablement, creating a holistic approach to sustainability throughout the entire lifecycle of IT assets. The consolidation and adjustment of the personal computer (PC) replacement lifecycle allowed Schneider to reduce its yearly PC carbon footprint by more than 15%. Carbon footprint reduction is an integrated requirement for the IT vendor selection processes. Consequently, new PCs are up to 40% more energy efficient and have a 50% lower carbon footprint than the corresponding end-of-life equipment to be replaced. Shifting demand to standardized PC models has resulted in an estimated 1,000 tonnes of avoided CO 2 /year in 2020. Setting ultra-small form factors as the default PC choice has also resulted in further CO 2 avoidance of more than 1,500 tonnes per year. Additionally, upholding the Group’s IT vendors to sustainability requirements, the annual 2021 CO 2 emission avoidance reached the level of 1,300 tCO 2 and 180 MWh of energy consumption. IT asset disposal is especially important from a sustainability and circular economy perspective. Therefore, the IT Asset Disposal approach has been designed taking into account sustainability and circular economy principles ensuring that Schneider Electric gives preference to Responsible Recycling (R2) or e-Steward compliant IT Asset Disposal vendors. By using leasing services (mainly in Europe and North America), donations, and offering an Employee Purchase Scheme (mainly in Asia Pacific and China) a second life is made possible for retired PCs. Refurbishing IT devices to give them a second life can extend their lifespan by several years. Extended lifespan implies a decrease of the weighted yearly carbon footprint by over 50% through the amortization of embedded CO 2 emissions over time. A pilot was carried out in 2021 supporting green search engine practices. In one month, the Group financed the planting of approximately 387 trees. This not only aids in reversing biodiversity loss, but also contributes to carbon sequestration absorbing anthropogenic emissions as well. During the year 2020, Schneider developed and introduced a framework based on a data-driven approach to track sustainability KPIs for End User Group devices. In 2021, the Group framework was deployed to track sustainability KPIs with regards to IT on- premise infrastructures. In 2022, the aim is to enable the tracking of sustainability KPIs for cloud-based infrastructures as well. Employee education on Green IT best practices was introduced in 2021, thus driving efficiency not only from the top-down but from the bottom-up as well. This was hosted through events such as Schneider Digital Open Days. Optimization of the Group data center footprint is achieved via its sustainable-first hybrid IT strategy. This was performed using two levers in 2021: the rationalization of on-premise servers and the move towards cloud. This switch has continued, partnering with providers who have made commitments in terms of sustainability and carbon neutrality. Thanks to that particular effort, the Company cloud infrastructure footprint increased by 25% in 2021, and over 80% of its server infrastructure has been virtualized. In addition to that, on-site servers were rationalized, thus saving about 1,300 tonnes of CO 2 in 2021. Schneider Electric has been utilizing Business Cloud Storage from a vendor which uses data centers that have achieved or have committed to achieve 100% renewable energy targets, therefore reducing its carbon footprint. In 2022, the aim is to migrate to a new solution which, through a data optimization approach, will allow a reduction of up to 40% of the size of used cloud storage data, thus further reducing corresponding carbon footprint emissions.