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How Siemens is accelerating sustainable progress

August 4, 2024
Borderless Leadership

Global tech leader Siemens is ranked in the top 1% of sustainable companies by EcoVadis & has huge ESG goals alongside helping other companies decarbonise. Siemens is a company with an enormous reach around the globe, creating products and solutions that impact the lives of people every day.

For years the tech giant has been helping other companies to improve their operations and become more sustainable, but covering a wide spectrum of fields can make internal sustainability difficult.

Despite the challenges, Siemens has become a shining example of sustainability and made incredible progress to lessening its negative impact on the environment.

Roland Busch, President and Chief Executive Officer at Siemens, says: “Our technologies transform the everyday, for everyone, by empowering our customers to create agile factories, intelligent buildings and energy grids, sustainable transportation, and better healthcare systems.

“Our company has achieved remarkable success over the past three and a half years, and we still have so much potential.”

Siemens: 176 years of experience
Siemens is a German multinational technology conglomerate focussed on the fields of industry, infrastructure, mobility and healthcare. The company is the global market leader in industrial automation and industrial software. Founded in 1847, its main divisions are Digital Industries, Smart Infrastructure, Mobility and Financial Services.

In FY2023, Siemens generated revenues of €78bn (US$84bn) and had around 320,000 employees worldwide. Roland says: “Our customers benefit from our ability to combine the real and digital worlds. “This unique capability enables Siemens to support its customers in a way that no other company can.”

How Siemens is pioneering in sustainability
Siemens’ ESG strategy comes in the form of its DEGREE sustainability framework based on six fields of action.

Siemens’ DEGREE framework:
D – Decarbonisation
E – Ethics
G – Governance
R – Resource efficiency
E – Equity
E – Employability
This framework provides a systematised, measurable long-term plan for Siemens to continue making a positive impact on the planet. By 2030 the company aims to reach net zero operations and use a ‘Robust Eco Design’ for 100% of its relevant product families. Siemens is also pushing towards a circular economy with its goal of a 50% waste-to-landfill reduction by 2025. On top of this, the company aims to have a net zero supply chain by 2050 and a 30% female share in top management by 2025.

Judith Wiese, Chief People and Sustainability Officer at Siemens, says: “Sustainability is in our very DNA. It’s not an option. It’s a business imperative. Based on our successful track record, we’re now setting ourselves even more ambitious targets. We’ll accelerate our efforts and raise the bar to create considerably more value for all our stakeholders. Sustainable business growth goes hand in hand with the value we create for people and our planet.”

Judith has been a leading executive at Siemens for four years and specialises in empowering culture and driving inclusion. She earned her Masters of Business Administration from the Universities of Rotterdam, Muenster and Duisburg-Essen with a major in Human Resources. Judith says: “Give me a problem and I’ll get excited about finding solutions for it. I think, therefore, that I’ve never in my life felt powerless. I’ve always found an angle for thinking where I can create impact, and where I can use my capabilities to create progress.”

Siemens’ sustainability achievements
Siemens has been awarded the highest recognition from sustainability rating company EcoVadis, with its platinum medal placing it in the top 1% of companies ranked worldwide.

Eva Riesenhuber, Global Head of Sustainability at Siemens, says: “We are immensely proud of this achievement, and it is a testament to our commitment to sustainability. More than 90% of our business enables our customers to achieve a positive sustainability impact in the areas of decarbonisation and energy efficiency, resource efficiency and circularity, and people centricity and societal impact. We remain dedicated to scaling sustainability impact.”

By Jasmin Jessen

Source: sustainabilitymag.com

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