Sydney (Australia), 21 October 2025 – Schneider Electric, the global leader in energy management and automation, is proud to announce that its pioneering medium-voltage switchgear technology, AirSeT, has been recognised by the World Economic Forum’s Alliance of CEO Climate Leaders as Champions of the Scope 3 Downstream Solutions Challenge in the Sustainable Design category.
This prestigious recognition highlights AirSeT’s transformative role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions across electrical distribution systems. By replacing sulphur hexafluoride (SF₆), a greenhouse gas with 24,300 times the global warming potential of CO₂, with pure air and vacuum technology, AirSeT eliminates one of the most potent contributors to Scope 3 emissions in electrical infrastructure.
“Product design is where downstream impact often begins,” Pim Valdre, Head of Climate & Nature Economy, Member of the Executive Committee, World Economic Forum, noted. “Sustainable design can deliver exponential benefits, including lowering costs, enhancing safety, ensuring regulatory compliance and reducing emissions across the entire lifecycle.”
AirSeT fully eliminates SF₆, helping customers reduce regulatory risk, enhance worker safety, and lower long-term operational costs. Since the launch of AirSeT, Schneider Electric has helped avoid 1.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e), as of June 2025, a contribution validated by third-party auditors as part of Schneider Sustainability Impact.
The Leading Market Alternative to SF₆
Since the 1950s, SF₆ has enabled the industry to reduce switchgear size and improve safety. However, this has come at a significant environmental cost. AirSeT, which is the only readily available solution powered by purified air, rather than SF₆, is easy to manage and integrate, while being resilient to evolving environmental regulation.
Delivered in familiar form factors and with the same operating procedures, AirSeT is also natively digital, enabling smarter grids and AI-driven condition-based maintenance at scale across data centres, industrial sites, and infrastructure. Designed with circularity in mind, AirSeT features: enhanced electrical & mechanical components for x5 more operations, spare parts, retrofit and modernisation capabilities with removable breakers for extended lifespan.
Schneider Electric is proud to lead the way in sustainable innovation. This recognition by the World Economic Forum shows the company’s commitment to designing technologies that deliver environmental, economic, and social value.
###
Press contact: PR agency for Schneider Electric – ICON Agency; schneider@iconagency.com.au
About Schneider Electric
Schneider’s purpose is to create Impact by empowering all to make the most of our energy and resources, bridging progress and sustainability for all. At Schneider, we call this Life Is On.
Our mission is to be the trusted partner in Sustainability and Efficiency.
We are a global industrial technology leader bringing world-leading expertise in electrification, automation and digitalization to smart industries, resilient infrastructure, future-proof data centers, intelligent buildings, and intuitive homes. Anchored by our deep domain expertise, we provide integrated end-to-end lifecycle AI enabled Industrial IoT solutions with connected products, automation, software and services, delivering digital twins to enable profitable growth for our customers.
We are a people company with an ecosystem of 160,000 colleagues and more than a million partners operating in over 100 countries to ensure proximity to our customers and stakeholders.
Follow us on:
Discover the newest perspectives shaping sustainability, electricity 4.0, and next-generation automation on Schneider Electric Insights.