Environmental data disclosure

Since launching our Greenhouse Neutral Programme in 2003, we have disclosed our operational environmental performance indicators, including greenhouse gas emissions and their relative performance over time, and we expanded our reporting scope with effect from 2013.

In 2021, at the onset of the ten-year reporting cycle within our CO2NetZero Programme (2021 – 2030), we undertook a full re-baselining exercise to update the greenhouse gas emission factors and improve our calculation methodology, aligning it with the latest climate science and relevant frameworks. The methodology we use to calculate our emissions is based on the guidelines of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol – Corporate Standard, the most widely used emissions accounting and reporting standard.

The baseline year for this reporting cycle is set to 2018. You can see the full disclosure of the Group’s operational emissions and underlying environmental data in the “Sustainability data” section. The restatements of the previous years’ figures resulting from the re-baselining process are explained in the same section.

While we strive to continuously improve the calculation methodology for the emissions in our current reporting boundary, we also acknowledge the existence of a large portion of upstream Scope 3 operational emissions that remains unmeasured and is therefore currently not reported. These emissions, mostly stemming from the activities in our supply chain, are roughly estimated to be five to ten times higher than our reported emissions. This ratio has increased significantly in the past two years due to the sharp reduction in emissions reported for business travel, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.*

The unreported emissions are hard to quantify accurately because their sources are beyond our direct operational control, and the methods and tools to collect the underlying activity data are not readily available yet. In line with our ambition to reduce our operational footprint and achieve the target of net-zero emissions in our operations by 2030, our next challenge will be to work in close collaboration with our main suppliers to identify, quantify and develop synergies to address the most material emission hotspots in our supply chain.

Before our environmental data are published, KPMG checks them to verify our calculations. Its complete Report is included on pages 119 – 122 of the pdf version of our Sustainability Report, and specifies which information and data points in the pdf of the Sustainability Report as well as the TCFD have received assurance.

* In the past, unreported emissions were roughly estimated to be three to five times higher than reported emissions. However, the absolute volume of reported emissions has decreased significantly in recent years thanks to our emissions reduction initiatives described on the previous pages and, in the past two years, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the overall magnitude of unreported emissions is estimated to be relatively stable and not strongly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.