www.se.com Schneider Electric 16 2021 Climate Report 5 D ecarbonizing our supply chain by 2050 Decarbonizing the world at scale, in line with the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), requires immediate collective action. Schneider Electric is committed to engaging its suppliers towards net-zero CO 2 emissions by 2050, and is already taking concrete action, through its Zero Carbon Project for the next 5 years. Achieving carbon neutrality in the Group’s value chain will require Schneider to work transversally with all stakeholders, from product design, through sourcing and manufacturing, to shipping. 5.1 T he Zero Carbon Project The Zero Carbon Project (TZCP) is the first step of this journey to galvanize the upstream supply chain and take coordinated actions to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from Schneider’s suppliers. Schneider Electric’s Executive leadership launched the initiative in April 2021, on the occasion of an all-digital global event, attended by the leadership of key supplier partners. The ambition of TZCP is to collaborate with 1,000 suppliers and reduce their operational greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50% by 2025 (SSI #3). The fundamental tenets of TZCP include: • Q uantifying GHG emissions; • T argeting ambitious emission reductions; • I mplementing an action plan to achieve the targets. The participating suppliers will be required to make public commitments for their reduction targets and share the emission reduction progress with Schneider. The participating companies cover more than 60 procurement categories from various regions, and vary in terms of carbon maturity and size. To adapt to this diversity, the participating suppliers are allowed a certain flexibility to customize their reduction plans by defining their own base year and baseline and adopt adequate reduction targets and time frames. So far, more than 1,000 suppliers have committed to participate in the program. An initial survey with those suppliers showed that more than 70% of them have not yet quantified their GHG emissions, so an important part of the journey will be for them to develop a robust GHG accounting tool. Partnership and collaboration Partnership and collaboration are at the heart of The Zero Carbon Project. Over the past years, Schneider has implemented several decarbonization measures and successfully reduced its own operational GHG emissions by more than 50%. To ensure that Schneider’s partners benefit from this experience and get a headstart in the journey, the Group conducted eight technical training sessions, spanning over 30 hours, for suppliers and partners across timezones and language proficiencies. Those sessions detailed the actions implemented at various Schneider locations, with leading decarbonization technologies and solutions, methodology for GHG footprint calculation, and case studies of successful implementation at other companies. Over 1,300 suppliers attended the sessions. To ensure constant engagement with these partners, The Zero Carbon Project Forum Community Calls have been initiated on a monthly basis. Those calls provide a platform, a safe space, for experience sharing and brainstorming on decarbonization-related experiences shared by the suppliers, so that all parties can learn from collective intelligence. As a support to those who are new to the decarbonization topic, 9 handholding sessions, in English and Mandarin were organized on the GHG footprint methodology in December 2021. Additionally, to provide specific handholding during the quantification of GHG emissions, Quick Response Teams were constituted to clarify and support supplier actions at regional level. In addition to the “one-to-one” support extended to the suppliers, a dedicated web portal has been deployed. This web portal provides single-window access to all thought leadership, research, trainings, case studies, decarbonization levers, and tools for quantification of GHG emissions and decarbonization. Calculating GHG emission reductions As a result of the engagement described earlier and outreach, the suppliers are starting to focus on setting up strong governance within their organizations, which will help navigate their decarbonization journey in the years to come. The GHG emission reduction reported in Schneider Sustainability Impact (SSI) #3, is measured as the average carbon intensity reduction of reporting suppliers, multiplied by the proportion of reporting companies among the 1,000 committed suppliers. This normalization is done to give a more adequate picture of the overall progress of all participating suppliers. The initial efforts so far have resulted in about 1% reduction of the GHG for 1,000 suppliers, and Schneider remains committed to working together with its partners to strengthen their efforts for stronger decarbonization. The Group will continue to record its suppliers’ GHG declarations on an annual basis to ensure the most accurate and updated information is available for reporting performance. Reduce CO 2 emissions from top 1,000 suppliers’ operations by 50% To address the suppliers’ need for handholding, the engagement approaches deployed are: • 8 technical training sessions • 9 C O 2 calculation training sessions • M onthly TZCP Community Calls • D edicated TZCP Web Portal Climate SSI #3 50% 0% Baseline 2025 target 2021 Progress 1%
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