Lessons from Signify’s Race to Zero

The members of the UN Global Climate Action Awards Advisory Panel, which is responsible for selecting the winning activities, said that they were particularly impressed by our Brighter Lives, Better World project.

They felt it serves as an excellent example of a large company not just pledging to work toward climate neutrality but actually delivering on it. They were also impressed by our integrated approach to climate action and found our activities to be truly transformative and innovative.

Yesterday, I had the privilege of accepting this award on behalf of the 37 thousand Signify employees around the globe who have created, innovated and pushed themselves and each other to lighten Signify’s environmental footprint and to enable greener solutions for our customers.

So, on behalf of the Signify team, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on how we got here. How can a 130-year old electronics company with an international manufacturing footprint go on to be recognised as a climate leader?

Let me take you back to 2015, which is when we committed to our 2020 goal to be carbon neutral and to convert to the use of 100% renewable electricity in all our operations. With a global manufacturing footprint and supply chain, nearly 40 thousand people, and offices in more than 70 countries, those commitments felt like a big step.

But we made it. And for those of your embarking on your own Race to Zero, here are some of the things we learned along the way.

We created integrated emission reductions efforts as growth drivers within our core business goals, ensuring that everything we did commercially also brought us closer to achieving our sustainability ambitions.

Examples of this include connected LED lighting, which on average saves 50% of the electricity consumed by conventional lighting, and which together with our Interact software platform, provides additional savings of 30% in offices, hotels and our city’s streets. Or 3D printed luminaires, which have a 75% lower carbon footprint than conventionally manufactured luminaires. And horticulture lighting, helping growers to grow more and higher quality crops, all year round, while using less electricity.

You can read more about our offsetting projects here: Carbon offsetting | Signify Company Website.

You can learn more about The Climate Groups RE100 and EV100 initiatives here and here.

These kinds of collaborations allow us to meet kindred spirits, to turn our inspiration into collaboration and action, and to do it at high speed.

This Brighter Lives, Better World 2025 sustainability programme has four important pillars:

1. To reduce emissions over our value chain to the extent that we meet the targets of the Paris Agreement in 2025 instead of 2031, helping to limit temperature rises to 1.5°C over pre-industrial times.
   
   
2. To double the percentage of our circular revenues to 32%. This represents revenues coming from products, systems and services designed for a circular economy, such as our innovative Light as a Service model or our 3D-printed luminaires.
   
   
3. To double our ‘brighter lives’ revenues to 32%. This includes revenues from lighting to increase food availability, safety and security, and health and wellbeing.
   
   
4. To double our commitment to diversity and inclusion and double the percentage of the women in leadership positions to 34%.
   
   This is not a time to be complacent, and there is work to be done to reach our goals. But by setting our ambition levels high, working together and sharing our experiences, I believe that Signify’s goals, and the world’s, can be achieved.
   
   After all, it takes all of us to win this Race to Zero