Goals and scope of the programme’s second phase

Seamlessly continuing from the Greenhouse Neutral Programme’s first ten years, we launched a second commitment phase running from 2013 until 2020. However, we should bear in mind that, after halving our CO₂ emissions per employee in the previous ten years, the potential for further reductions is now much smaller. Our new target is to keep our CO₂ emissions per employee stable at the level of 2013; we consider this to be an ambitious goal in view of our expansive business strategy, especially in high growth markets.

At the same time, we decided to extend the scope of our emissions accounting and reporting. In the programme’s first phase, we reported our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions (heating and power consumption) as well as a major source of Scope 3 emissions (business travel). In the programme’s second phase our reporting also covers the following activities along our supply chain (Scope 3): employee commuting, copy paper use, waste generation, water use and technical gases.

Our commitment to offset the CO₂ emissions we cannot avoid now includes paper, waste, water and technical gases, in addition to power, heating and business travel.

In 2014, our total CO₂ emissions per employee increased by 1.2%, mainly driven by a rise in business travel. Although we managed to achieve a further reduction in internal energy consumption (power and heating), this was not enough to outweigh the additional emissions caused by business travel.