Schneider Electric’s Circular Economy Commitments and Progress Unveiled Today

With growing pressures over climate and natural resources, it is critical that manufacturing and consumption patterns evolve across industry sectors and become more “Circular”. Circular Economy represents a wise alternative to resource intensive economic models. It is about prolonging life of assets, leasing, pay-per-use, repairing, servicing, reusing, retrofitting, modernizing, refurbishing, taking-back and, when no other option exists… recycling. Circularity is also a very meaningful and business-relevant journey. It adds value to Customers, it also triggers more intimacy and longer-lasting relationships with them.

Schneider Electric, the leader in digital transformation of energy management and automation, is actively engaged in this space, notably through its membership to Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s CE100 initiative on Circular Economy. On October 25th, 2018, in the French Environment Ministry’s conference as part of Country’s Roadmap for Circular Economy, we are sharing our vision and strategy in this space. Our ambitions cover four complementary axes:

• More Circular Value Propositions (more Energy as a Service, more Pay as you grow, more connected objects and related circular services, etc)

• More Circular Products (more revenues with ECOFIT^TM and modernization services; 100,000 metric tons of primary resources avoided through ECOFIT^TM, promotion of take-back capabilities)

• More Circular Resources (eco-design of 100% offers; 75% revenues made with products with digitally available “End-of-Life Circular Instructions” for responsible recycling; doubling the tonnage of recycled plastics in our products by 2025)

• More Circular Supply Chain (ambition of 100% recycled/certified cardboard and pallets in transport packing by 2020; 100% packaging recycled or from sustainable sources by 2030; 200 sites Towards Zero Waste to Landfil, a waste diversion rate of 95%, more take-back and repair centers, etc)

Our commitments and transformations are spelt out in multiple internal and external communications, and some of these are outlined in this publication just released by AFEP (french only)