Schneider Electric accelerates fight against climate change at One Planet Summit

• Schneider Electric executives collaborate with other sustainability leaders on how to deliver tangible actions on the most pressing global sustainability challenges

London, UK – 11th December 2017 – Schneider Electric, the leader in digital transformation of energy management and automation, will join other sustainability leaders to support and accelerate the common fight against climate change at the One Planet Summit. Two years to the day after the adoption of the Paris Agreement, and following COP23, President of France Emmanuel Macron is organising the milestone summit to convene those involved in public and private finance to deliver ambitious and achievable actions that will contribute to limiting global warming and its impact.

Jean-Pascal Tricoire, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Schneider Electric said: “Prosperity and energy are intertwined. For Schneider Electric, contributing to the process of achieving carbon neutrality is an ambitious and productive challenge that deserves the joint commitment of the public and private sectors. Schneider Electric is aligning its strategy and its activity with this essential outlook of the 21st century.”

To mark the occasion of the One Planet Summit, Schneider Electric is accelerating its ambition and commitments for climate that supports the company’s objectives to reduce its plants and sites carbon emission and to become carbon neutral by 2030 in a coherent industry ecosystem encompassing both suppliers and clients. The pledge is based around three complementary initiatives:

1. Before 2020, outline a specific trajectory based on the assumption that Earth will breach the 2°C warming limit by 2050 and validate it through the Science-Based Targets initiative, in which Schneider Electric has been involved for one year, and increase the impact of Schneider Electric’s internal carbon price. Schneider Electric has already set a goal of cutting CO2 emissions by more than 50 per cent in absolute value by 2050 compared to 2015.
2. Achieve for 2030, and add to, the 10 commitments presented at COP21 in 2015 in order to build carbon neutrality within Schneider Electric’s ecosystem and specifically quantify the carbon impact of 100 per cent of its major customer projects (see above).
3. Starting today take action and, to ensure full transparency, monitor whether Schneider Electric has achieved its targets through the quarterly publication of its Planet & Society barometer and in connection with major open coalitions. These commitments are accelerating the results already obtained and disseminated through Schneider Electric’s four barometers since 2008; for example, its energy intensity was cut by 42 per cent between 2005 and 2017, and the carbon intensity of its logistics was reduced by 35 per cent between 2012 and 2017.

The One Planet Summit will also see Tricoire and other Schneider Electric executives collaborate with other sustainability leaders on how to deliver tangible actions on the most pressing global sustainability challenges across a series of events and roundtables (see above). Schneider Electric will also announce several new commitments that will maintain the company’s leading position at the forefront of sustainability efforts including:

• RE100: Schneider Electric has joined RE100, the global collaborative initiative, led by The Climate Group, announcing its commitment to 100 per cent renewable electricity use by 2030;
• EP100: By joining the EP100 initiative, also led by The Climate Group, Schneider Electric has committed to double its energy productivity against a 2005 baseline, setting an ambitious target to doubling the economic output from every unit of energy consumed;
• Livelihoods Carbon Fund: Together with Crédit Agricole, Danone, Firmenich, Hermès, Michelin, SAP, and Voyageurs du Monde, Schneider Electric has launched a new impact investment fund, with a target of 100 million euros. The fund aims to improve the lives of two million people and avoid the emission of up to 25 million tons of CO2 over a 20-year span.

As a global leader at the crossroads of the energy transition and the digital transition, Schneider Electric is focusing on intelligent control, active distribution management and energy consumption. Schneider Electric is committed to bringing solutions to market that will increase the flexibility of both industrial production and all energy fields and applications.

Schneider Electric’s aim is to improve usage comfort and safety while sharply cutting – at the lowest cost – energy consumption and carbon emissions in keeping with the new landscape of decentralised, carbon-free and digitalised energy production. Because access to energy is a fundamental human right, Schneider Electric also intends to innovate to help the one billion people on the planet who do not have access to energy and the 10 per cent of inhabitants facing energy insecurity, by developing affordable and reliable low-carbon solutions.

Schneider Electric agenda at the One Planet Summit and its side-events:  http://www.realwire.com/realResource.asp?rid=49122042920171211&ReleaseID=46972&d=w&name=Events.jpg

Updates announced to 2015 commitments and progress achieved to date: http://www.realwire.com/realResource.asp?rid=49122042920171211&ReleaseID=46972&d=w&name=Updates.jpg