APC 2015 Annual Report Download - page 73

2015 REGISTRATION DOCUMENT SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC 71
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
2
SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC’S COMMITMENT TOENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE
3.2 Reduction of CO2 Emissions
Approach
CO2 reduction has been a focus for Schneider Electric for many
years. Periodical measurement of our end-to-end CO2 footprint has
been done, transformation programs to progressively reduce CO2
externalities from our operations are underway, and new offers with
better (positive) CO2 impacts have been designed and launched. In
this COP21 year, in addition to our corporate teams’ involvement in
a variety of key multi-stakeholders initiatives, we can mention the
following initiatives and achievements:
•articulation of a CO2 roadmap with 2020 and 2030 horizons;
•issuance of a EUR300 million Climate Bond dedicated to
fi nancing low-CO2 innovations providing more than 10% CO2
gains compared to reference solutions;
•issuance of a Materials and Substance directive for our R&D and
Purchasing teams, pushing for lower-carbon resources in our
products wherever possible;
•design and pilot (15 projects) of our rejuvenated ecoDesign Way
process, with a systematic consideration of CO2 impacts in
product profi ling at time of design, build, and launch;
•constant reduction (-4,8%) of our energy & logistics related CO2
footprints compared to previous years;
•provision of Product Environment Profi le information, containing
CO2 data, for more than 150,000 SKUs (stock-keeping units) and
available in a smartphone App-enabled solution;
•commissioning of renewable (solar in most cases) energy
and lighting sources on some of our key manufacturing and
commercial sites, enabled by Schneider Electric solutions;
•further development of CO2 quantifi cation tools to allow easy
calculation of CO2 impacts and the benefi ts of our solutions for
our customers;
•articulation and communication of our 10 CO2 commitments
ahead of COP21.
While we know our solutions help homes, offi ces, industries, data
centers and utilities alike to save energy, reduce carbon emissions,
and allow enhanced use of low-CO2 energies, we want to still be
cautious in claiming our CO2 positive contribution to the world. Our
current plan of action towards that end is as follows: we fi rst work
towards the constant reduction of our own CO2 impacts across
our supply chains, from raw materials extraction, energy use, to
products end-of-life management. Second, we constantly work
towards improving and quantifying in a more precise manner our
various forms of CO2 avoidance contributions to our customers,
thus to the world. We clearly aspire to carbon neutrality, and will in
2016 clarify the exact nature of how we both impact the planet’s
climate through our supply chains and how, at the same time, we
have a massive positive impact against climate change, through our
innovations and solutions for our customers.
Action plans
Reduction of SF6 emissions
In manufacturing processes with SF6 gas, a Failure Modes and
Effects Analysis (FMEA) has been deployed. Improvements have
also been implemented in fi lling, tightness testing processes and
measurements processes, across all sites handling SF6 gas.
From the end of 2008 to the end of 2015, the SF6 leakage rate in
production processes has been divided by a factor 10, falling from
4% to 0.40% of SF6 gas quantities included in our products.
Overall, the CO2 emissions avoided thanks to SF6 leakage reduction
in factories during this 2009–2015 period reached over 150,000
metric tons.
Specifi c and s ignifi cant investments have been made to bring SF6
gas closer to fi lling machines, to reduce leakage risks . Specifi c
training has been rolled-out, a worldwide community of SF6 experts
created, and a bespoke continuous improvement management
system has been designed and rolled-out.
In order to meet our continuous reduction goal and to get closer
to zero emissions, an initiative towards SF6 leakage rate reduction
in fi eld services activities was launched in 2015, as well as in R&D
laboratories (where SF6 gas is handled for new product testing) and
global monitoring has been put in place.
Finally, through our SF6 end-of-life recovery and recycling program
(EoL6 for End of Life 6) we have been able to recover, in 2015,
1905.4kg of SF6 equivalent to 44,777 metric tons of CO2, up from
the 998.5kg of SF6 recovered in 2014, i.e. 23,465metric tons of
CO2 equivalent.
The EoL6 program is gradually being deployed worldwide,
meanwhile Schneider Electric already provides SF6 EOL services in
17 countries as of end 2015.
Energy savings
In general, Schneider Electric sites are low consumers of energy,
compared with other industries. Our industrial activities have a
high proportion of manual or automatic assembly, and few of our
processes are highly energy intensive. However, Schneider Electric
wishes to set an example in the reduction of energy consumption,
and uses its own technologies and software and applies its own
solutions.