Zero Carbon Project, a contribution to our partner Schneider Electric's customer challenges

ADDEV Materials is one of the 1000 suppliers participating in the Schneider Electric Zero Carbon project. Claire Charondière, Procurement Project Leader at Schneider Electric, explains the project’s aims.

What is the Zero Carbon project?

Schneider Electric has made long-term commitments under the United Nations 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals. Using its Schneider Sustainability Impact (SSI) 2021-2025 scorecard, the Group monitors and presents its progress toward concrete targets relating to climate, resources, trust, equal opportunities, generations, and local communities on a quarterly basis. The Zero Carbon project targets one of our climate commitments: to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in operations (scope 1 and 2) by 50% across 1000 of our main suppliers by 2025. The stakes are high: these suppliers account for 70% of our inbound supply chain emissions. The first and most important step is to involve and support our suppliers in our efforts to fundamentally change our activities and achieve a Net-Zero Carbon supply chain by 2050.

What does your support entail?

Our commitment to decarbonizing our own operations for the past 15 years has given us strong expertise to support our suppliers by sharing our experiences and knowledge and using our own products, solutions, and services in the energy management field. To begin with, we used a questionnaire to assess where our suppliers stood in terms of decarbonization. Then, in summer 2021, we held technical training courses with Zero Carbon project managers and energy efficiency and sustainable development experts. Monthly forums have been held since October 2021 to exchange and share experiences among peers within the project’s community of 1000 suppliers. We also held several carbon footprint calculation training sessions. The implementation phase began in 2022 and is based on three pillars: Analysis (quantifying and measuring GHG emissions), Ambition (defining a reduction strategy and targets), and Action (defining and implementing an action plan).

What levers can a supplier like ADDEV Materials employ?

ADDEV Materials is a highly proactive supplier when it comes to Zero Carbon. The first decarbonization lever for a supplier such as ADDEV Materials is electrification of its operations (industrial processes, buildings, vehicle fleet), for example, replacing a gas boiler with a heat pump. A second lever is reducing its energy consumption with energy efficiency solutions and digital tools for managing and optimizing energy performance of its industrial products and any buildings. A third lever is replacing energy sources with renewable energy sources (purchasing “green” electricity, for example), local energy production (installing photovoltaic panels, for example), or even carbon offsetting.