Challenge

Schneider Electric (SE) aims to cut absolute GHG emissions across its entire value chain by 25% by 2030 from its 2021 baseline, on its way to achieve net-zero CO2 emissions across its entire value chain by 2050. Having decreased its Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 67% since 2017, SE acknowledged that it will not be able to achieve that ambitious goal without engaging its suppliers, an integral part of its ecosystem that accounts for 70% of SE’s upstream carbon emissions.

This is why in 2021 SE launched “The Zero Carbon project”, which aims to help its top suppliers reduce their operational emissions (Scope 1 and 2) by 50% by 2025.

Solution

The Zero Carbon Project provides capacity-building, thought leadership, resources, digital tools and practical assistance and guidance to programme participants, helping them set and achieve their carbon reduction targets. The initiative cultivates best practice exchange via regular live engagements and training sessions, with training materials available on the Schneider Supplier Portal.

The project has three fundamental tenets:

1. Analytics: help suppliers quantify their GHG emissions, establish a baseline and identify the main sources of emissions
2. Ambition: encourage suppliers to set ambitious emissions reduction targets
3. Action: support suppliers in deploying their action plans to achieve their targets

The Zero Carbon Project was launched globally via a live webcast with top executives from Schneider Electric’s top suppliers. The event set the vision and expectations for the initiative, highlighting Schneider’s unique position and experience in achieving a 60% CO2 reduction in less than five years. The programme’s flexibility was emphasized, catering to each supplier’s unique situation in terms of industry, size, country, energy mix and CO2 maturity.

Impact

More than 1,000 companies have joined Schneider’s Zero Carbon Project, with 1,300 supplier participants trained, resulting in the company having already achieving a 24% emissions reduction by the end of Q3 2023. Interestingly, 70% of these suppliers had never assessed their carbon footprint before. Schneider provides support to the suppliers, engaging with them at various stages of decarbonization maturity, and helping them progress towards the 50% reduction target by 2025.

Featured in our paper "The “No-Excuse” Opportunities to Tackle Scope 3 Emissions in Manufacturing and Value Chains"