Schneider Electric Sustainability Report 2019 - 2020: Climate Action Highlights

We made a firm resolution years ago to address the climate crisis. We work toward a cleaner future by building sustainable programs into our business, and in 2019 we continued to turn rhetoric into results.

Schneider Sustainability Impact results

Climate is part of our 2018 – 2020 Schneider Sustainability Impact (SSI). The SSI covers 21 impacts that align with U.N. SDGs. Together with the global community, we are working to alleviate poverty, protect the planet, and bring about global peace and prosperity. 

Here is our 2018 and 2019 progress against our 2020 goals.

Our progress toward a brighter, cleaner future for all has been validated and reinforced by events, awards, and partnerships over the past year, as we:

• Developed a revolutionary medium-voltage switchgear that uses pure air instead of SF6
• Recognized as one of Corporate Knights’ 100 Most Sustainable Corporations for the seventh consecutive year
• Ranked on the CDP’s (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) “A-List” for the ninth consecutive year
• Partnered with The Climate Group in its EV100 initiative to hasten the global adoption of electric vehicles
• Entered into a four-year partnership with the Solar Impulse Foundation to help identify 1,000 solutions that profitably protect the environment²
• Invested €1.3B in R&D and Innovation to advance a new electric and digital world through innovations, such as inventing decarbonizing technologies and incorporating new circular business models into our operations

Technologies for a cleaner future

For us, success is determined by the amount of CO2 emissions saved and avoided on our customers' end. To help us prosper for the good of the planet, we employ a four-part strategy:

• Our design process — ecoDesign Way™ — creates solutions that adhere to circularity, with transparent environmental footprint information
• EcoStruxure™ architecture delivers CO2 benefits to our customers — with some customers achieving carbon-negative operation
• EcoStruxure Energy & Sustainability Services (ESS) use solutions like EcoStruxure Resource Advisor™ to proactively manage the energy, carbon, and resource footprints of thousands of clients worldwide
• We infuse our new offers with circular principles — take-back, repair, and retrofit services help lower the cost of ownership and environmental footprint for customers

EcoStruxure Energy & Sustainability Services by the numbers

€30B
managed in energy spend (70 GW)

128 M
metric tons of CO2 controlled

250,000+
client sites managed via EcoStruxure Resource Advisor software

A Finnish first

Lidl, one of Europe’s largest grocery store chains, needed a new distribution center to support its growing operations in Finland. Its vision was for a facility that could stand as a practical symbol for its sustainability commitments. EcoStruxure Building Operation teaches the building management system to predict events and optimize energy usage. This digital system works in tandem with Microgrid Advisor so that energy is consumed, produced, or stored exactly when it needs to be, saving 70% in energy costs. The facility runs so efficiently that, during certain times of the year, it goes beyond net-zero by distributing excess energy to 500 homes nearby, reducing the community’s draw on the local power plant — and setting a new benchmark in efficiency.

References
²“The Schneider Electric Foundation Partners With the Solar Impulse Foundation,” Markets Insider, 2019.