An Interview with Agustin Lopez Diaz, Chief Sustainability, Customer & Quality Officer at Schneider Electric
Agustin Lopez Diaz, Chief Sustainability, Customer & Quality Officer at Schneider Electric. | Source: Schneider Electric.
Can you tell us about your organization and your current role?
We are a technology company providing energy and automation digital solutions for efficiency and sustainability to customers around the world. We are a 34-billion-euro revenue company with over 140,000 employees in over 100 countries. We have two key businesses: Energy Management and Industrial Automation. We are a balanced company in terms of our end markets and geographies, and we serve customers in four end markets: Buildings, Data Centers, Industry, and Infrastructure.
I hold the position of Chief Sustainability, Customer & Quality Officer at Schneider Electric. I have been leading the Customer & Quality department since April 2022 and took on the additional responsibility of Sustainability in September 2023.
At Schneider Electric, I am committed to driving sustainability initiatives and ensuring the highest level of customer satisfaction and product quality. My experience in the industry has equipped me with the knowledge and skills necessary to make a positive impact in these areas.
What are your corporate sustainability commitments and goals?
Our purpose is to empower all to make the most of our energy and resources, bridging progress and sustainability for all.
In 2005, we were the first to monitor our impact on people, planet, and profit with an industry-leading sustainability barometer. Over 15 years later, we remain committed to driving action, not just through ourselves and our partners, but also for our customers and local communities.
Evaluated every 3-5 years, our current Schneider Sustainability Impact (SSI) program runs from 2021 to 2025 and encompasses six long-term commitments: to act for a climate-positive world; be efficient with resources; live up to our principles of trust; create equal opportunities; harness the power of all generations; and empower local communities. These six commitments involve eleven global targets and accompanying local targets on which we report our progress quarterly and yearly, in tandem with financial results.
One example of our climate targets is to help our customers save and avoid 800 million tonnes of CO2 emissions by 2025. Another target, this one resources-related, is to have 100% of our primary and secondary packaging free from single-use plastic. An example of our equal opportunities commitment is to provide access to green electricity to 50 million people.
We were one of the first companies to have our Net-Zero targets validated by the SBTi with its Corporate Net-Zero Standard in August 2022. And we’re honored to have our progress recognized by numerous external ESG ratings like the DJSI, CDP, EcoVadis, and Vigeo Eiris.
At Schneider Electric, we believe that companies that want to do well must also do good – and vice versa. As an Impact Company, we are committed to bringing everyone along, employees, customers, and suppliers, and working more closely with policymakers and local communities to make a difference.
What have been your most difficult challenges in achieving those goals?
When it comes to our climate goals, scope 3 emissions are a big challenge. They can represent a huge part of an organization’s carbon footprint; for Schneider Electric, it’s about 99%. So, working with our suppliers to dial these emissions down is essential to meeting our carbon commitments.
While we work on dialing down emissions, about three-quarters of which are energy-related, we cannot forget the over 700 million people who lack access to electricity to begin with. As mentioned previously, one of our SSI targets is to provide access to green electricity to 50 million people.
Ultimately, achieving goals like these requires a skilled workforce, so we need to address the shortage of skills in the digital, electrification, and clean energy sectors. According to BCG, by 2030, there may be a lack of 7 million green energy workers.
What opportunities do you see to address those challenges?
Schneider Electric targets a 25% reduction in scope 3 emissions by 2030 and a 90% reduction by 2050 (compared to 2021). As a first step towards achieving this, we have launched The Zero Carbon Project, which aims to cut 50% of operational carbon emissions from its top 1,000 suppliers by 2025. At the end of 2022, we were proud to see the project progress by 10%.
With our Access to Energy program that began in 2009, we’ve seen the power of collaboration, innovative solutions, and strategic investments. In one successful case, HCL Foundation chose Schneider Electric to help rural parts of India access electricity. Our solutions, combined with their local footprint, enabled HCL to improve education, health, and overall quality of life for thousands of people.
Regarding the skills gap, promoting diversity and gender inclusivity in our industry is part of the solution. The IEA shared recently that the energy sector workforce has 76% fewer women than men. One way we’re tackling this is through our partnership with Associação Feminina de Estudos Sociais e Universitários (AFESU) in Brazil, to offer vocational training to young women, along with job opportunities and practical experience. This is just one example: training and upskilling people of all ages and from all walks of life is key so that they can help make sustainability commitments a reality.
What are the ESG material (environmental, social, and governance) issues that your organization focuses on, and how do you integrate them into your corporate sustainability?
The results of Schneider Electric’s 2020 materiality matrix showed that the most material topics for the Group are:
- Leading climate action in our ecosystem with our partners;
- Pioneering circular economy and being efficient with resources;
- Ensuring a fair transition and guaranteeing high ethical, social, and environmental standards along more local value chains;
- Leveraging digital in cyber-secure solutions to boost the positive impact.
To cover all these priorities, Schneider Electric defined six long-term commitments (Climate, Resources, Trust, Equal, Generations, and Local) and our 2021-2025 Schneider Sustainability Impact (SSI) and Schneider Sustainability Essentials (SSE) programs to measure progress against them.
How do you communicate your corporate sustainability strategy and initiatives to internal and external stakeholders?
The SSI program is the translation of our six long-term commitments into a selection of eleven highly transformative and innovative programs. Program results are published quarterly, audited annually, and linked to short-term incentive plans for the managers of the Group.
A notable addition to the SSI in 2021 is the local aspect, aiming to deploy local actions in the 100+ markets where we operate to better empower all leaders and collaborators to unlock meaningful local impacts.
Another tool has been created to maintain a high level of commitment and transparency in the actions taken by the Group: the Schneider Sustainability Essentials (SSE). This new tool brings balance between the innovative transformation plans of the SSI and the need to keep progressing on other long-lasting programs. In that spirit of continuous improvement and a holistic vision of sustainability, the SSE tracks annual progress with 25 quantitative KPIs and some additional qualitative programs.
Collectively, the SSI’s eleven Global Impacts and its Local Impact, as well as the 25 SSE programs, are the Group’s short-term sustainability roadmap and our contribution to the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.
What were the most exciting initiatives and progress that you and your team have done in 2023?
This year, we crossed the halfway mark with our 2021 – 2025 SSI program. We’ve also almost crossed the halfway mark with some key targets, such as cutting 50% of operational carbon emissions from our top 1,000 suppliers by 2025.
On a local level, some highlights include:
- Providing clean and reliable electricity to 20,000 people with solar-powered solutions installed at a children’s clinic in Kenya;
- Contributing to the restoration of the Notre Dame Cathedral, preserving both French and world heritage with our expertise and solutions;
- Collaborating on the Enactus Core Program in Mexico, impacting over 400 universities, colleges, and 60,000 students to foster entrepreneurial and social innovation skills.
What are the lessons you learned from your sustainability efforts in 2023?
Sustainability efforts are not quick wins, they are transformative efforts. With that in mind, there are areas in which we’ve done exceptionally well, such as providing access to electricity to 44.2 million people and training over 800 thousand people in energy management since 2009.
And others where we’re advancing at a slower, yet exponential rate. For instance, Schneider Electric’s Supply Chain Decarbonization Project or Decent Work program. Such programs rely on broad outreach and sustained collaborative efforts and, therefore require more time.
What are your plans for sustainability efforts in 2024?
2024 marks the penultimate year for our SSI program (2021-2025). To meet our targets, we are focused on taking the organization to the next level of maturity on sustainability by attracting and developing sustainability specialists across the organization. Additionally, we plan on enriching our upskilling and cross-skilling programs, like the Sustainability School, with more capabilities to equip employees, suppliers, and customers with the right resources.
Our commitment to increasing access to clean electricity to 50 million people remains unwavering. We will continue investing our time and resources in supporting entrepreneurs and making a positive impact in local communities. Through education, training, volunteering, and partnerships with local organizations, we aim to empower individuals and uplift communities. Our goal is to train 1 million people in energy skills, with a particular emphasis on empowering women and providing social mentorship to our collaborators.
Last but not least, working with our suppliers, we will advance decent work – with the aim to improve the lives of workers and ensure their dignity.
If you were to share advice you learned in your role that may be helpful to your peers and sustainability practitioners around the world, what would that be?
Turning net-zero carbon ambitions into action is a common challenge faced by many organizations. For my peers, I would like to highlight that digitization can help, as the fastest way to scale sustainable impact.
At the industrial level, even energy-intensive sectors can reduce their energy usage with digital solutions and the data provided. Power requirements are optimized at every stage – whether it be design, maintenance, or improving flexibility of production environments. We’ve seen a 23-31% reduction in energy usage with our smart factories programme.
And in buildings, technologies available today have the potential to lower carbon emissions by 2030, while generating up to 70% energy savings for building dwellers.
The value such technologies bring can be much greater than their initial adoption costs. However, the speed at which these digital solutions are deployed needs to accelerate, further supported by demand optimization and electrification of the manufacturing, building, and transport sectors.
Editor: Nazalea Kusuma
This publication is a part of Green Network Asia’s Leaders in Sustainability Special Report 2023.
Kresentia Madina
Madina is the Assistant Manager for Digital Publications at Green Network Asia. She graduated from Universitas Indonesia with a bachelor's degree in English Literature. She has three years of professional experience working on GNA international digital publications, programs, and partnerships particularly on social and cultural issues.
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