APC 2015 Annual Report Download - page 71

2015 REGISTRATION DOCUMENT SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC 69
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
2
SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC’S COMMITMENT TOENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE
customers. On the resource side, we have mapped our overall
resource footprint (copper and other metals, plastics, packaging,
wood, gases, other resources), and have a clear understanding
of the major impacts and stakes, and areas for further resource
decoupling are prioritized.
2. Building an increasingly Greener Supply Chain. Resource
effi ciency and productivity are our mottos. This report
contains specifi c sections about our efforts and sustained
achievements towards energy and water effi ciency, reduction
of transportation and manufacturing externalities, green Best
Available Techniques adoption in our plants and distribution
centers. Additionally, all key Schneider Electric processes
embed environmental considerations, making environmental
performance and resource productivity key dimensions of major
decisions (e.g. through our SPS/Schneider Production System
framework). On the energy front, leveraging our own solutions
and expertise, this year again our sites delivered a further 4.5%
improvement of their energy effi ciency compared to 2014, which
is beyond our ambitions set for the year, and despite many
years of prior energy effi ciency improvements. We invested and
commissioned signifi cant equipment to keep on reducing SF6
leakages in our factories, and we are heading towards the 0.2%
target set for 2020.
3. Considering Waste as Worth. We drive an « obsession
towards zero waste» across our 1,600 facilities globally. Waste
minimization, reuse, recycling, and land avoidance have become
an integral part of our plants and distribution center performance
scorecards, and we see constant progress. This year, we are
proud to have 64 plants receiving the ‘Towards Zero Waste to
Landfi ll’ designation. We are successfully diverting thousands of
tons of waste from landfi ll, year after year, and saw in 2015 a
strong increase (+4%) of our waste recovery ratio globally. Our
efforts in ecoDesign and industrialization space also add to our
ability to generate less waste and be smarter with our resource
use. We awarded innovations in this area in 2015, with sites from
across the globe implementing smart practices towards zero
waste.
4. Promoting Green attributes and value-addition to our customers,
and our Green PremiumTM ecoLabel. An increasing share of
our customers is increasingly valuing our offers’ environmental
credentials, and keen to quantify their environmental (e.g. kWh,
CO2, water) benefi ts on their end. Towards this goal, Schneider
Electric has been investing signifi cant resources for many
years to design and implement an innovative ecoLabel, Green
PremiumTM, which by end 2015 covered more than EUR9billion
(which is more than 67%) of our product-based turn-over. This
label benefi ted in 2015 from a set of further innovations, such as
a smartphone App with QR Code capacity, allowing customers,
channel partners, and electricians alike to 24/7 access to
digitized environmental information (REACH, RoHS, Product
Environment Profi le/PEP, End of Life Instructions/EoLI). We also
developed tools and communication materials for our customers
as well as front-offi ce teams to articulate in non-technical terms
the value-addition for our customers of our offers environmental
differentiators: beyond superior transparency or digital access
to data, many of our offers go beyond regulations and provide
«super-safe» products to our customers globally, and peace of
mind. Quantifi cation of CO2 gains for concerned solutions has
also made some good progress in 2015, towards our target of
100% of large solutions being provided with full CO2 impact and
gain assessment for customers by end 2017.
5. Implementing a Circular Economy in a variety of ways for
our customers’ satisfaction. Schneider Electric circularity
expresses itself in many ways. On the resource and waste
sides, we have covered above how we work towards wasting
less and reusing more, and progress is underway. On the offer
side, we have innovated in a variety of ways. We grew our fi eld
services and Retrofi t (ecoFitTM) revenues again in 2015 . Such
services help us prolong our products’ lifetime , and it helps our
customer enjoy energy management and automation services
using fewer resources, ‘Doing more with less’. We also grow our
services towards the management of our products’ end-of-life,
for low and medium voltage equipment, or UPS (Uninterrupted
Power Supply) systems, for instance. We see circularity as based
on common sense, as much as a fantastic lens to drive further
innovation and value-addition for our customers and the planet
alike.
6. Constantly strengthening our efforts towards robust
environmental governance. Besides the fi ve strategic and
transformational dimensions summarized above, we should also
stress our constant efforts towards environmental stewardship
in the way we select and grow our supplier base (more than
600 assessments, plus hundreds of fi eld visits and audits), in
the way we assess environmental risks in our supply chain, how
we comply with changing regulations, or report to a variety of
external stakeholders and analysts, not forgetting our efforts
towards the embedding of environmental considerations across
other functions’ processes, such as purchasing, investment,
manufacturing, logistics, acquisition, Human Resources
management, etc. While improving the strategic alignment
of our environmental journey with our corporate strategy and
Schneider is On program, we meanwhile strive to address key
risks and changing expectations of our global ecosystem .