Driving climate action for people, planet and profit

This Article has been written by Andrea Barrett , VP of Social Responsibility and Sustainability at RS Group plc .

To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, the world needs to limit global warming to a maximum of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement. To achieve this, we need decarbonisation on a global scale and all businesses need to develop robust net zero strategies for the direct operations and wider value chains.???

At RS, our ambition is to reach net zero in our direct operations by 2030 and in our value chain by 2050. We are committed to helping fight the climate crisis through genuine actions to reduce our carbon emissions, from ensuring our distribution centres generate and use renewable electricity, to cutting the distance our products travel and switching to deliveries by road or sea rather than air. Also, by working with our suppliers to offer our customers products that save energy and reduce the carbon footprint of their operations.?

We are uniting the whole of RS , our 1.1 million customers and our 2,500+ suppliers behind this goal so that together we can develop and implement solutions that work.?

We see this is not only the right thing to do for people and planet, but core to our purpose of making amazing happen for a better world, and our RS strategy, which is focused on delivering greater, long-term value for all of our stakeholders.?

Science Based Targets

To realise our ambitions, we’ve set four science-based targets covering our direct operations, logistics, suppliers and products, which are the most material areas of our Scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon emissions. These targets and their supporting initiatives drive our decarbonisation approach and support the target to limit global warming to 1.5°C.?

And we’re delighted to announce that our targets have just been validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), making us one of the first global providers of industrial product and service solutions to pass this sustainability milestone.?

These include:?

• reducing absolute Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions by 75% by 2029/30*??
• reducing Scope 3 transport emissions by 25% per tonne of product sold by 2029/2030*??
• reducing Scope 3 emissions from the use of RS PRO products by 20% per tonne of products sold by 2029/30*?

• 67% of suppliers (by spend) covering purchased goods and services will set science-based targets by 2024/2025?

*All targets are from a 2019/20 baseline year.??

Setting the targets is of course the easy part and we know we have a challenging journey ahead to achieve them. But, we have a fantastic team assembled, who are already driving great progress:?

• We’ve reduced our Scope 1 and 2 CO2 emissions by 58% since 2019/20??
• This has been enabled by a switch to renewable electricity (procured and generated by RS), energy management in our distribution centres and the adoption of electric vehicles into our company car fleet?
• 94% of Group electricity comes from renewable sources, including the power generated from a 6,000m2 solar array system on the roof of our expanded Bad Hersfeld DC in Germany?
• 54% of our UK fleet is electric or hybrid???
• We’ve linked the performance of our direct emissions reduction to our annual bonus incentive for 50% of our people, as well our ￡400m revolving credit facility?

Supporting Targets

We have also set supporting targets for packaging and waste to drive further climate action and we have committed to increasing our range of sustainable product and service solutions for our customers to help them reduce their own environmental impacts. This includes the launch of our Better World product range in 15 markets this year, which will help customers make more sustainable product choices, save energy and cut carbon emissions in their operations. We have c. 20,000k products in the range and hope to grow this to 100,000 by 2025.?

We know that we have a challenging task ahead, but we are committed to collaborating with our people, customers and suppliers all over the world, to drive bold actions that will deliver our ambitious targets and help fight climate change.?

We’d love to hear your feedback on our progress so far. Comment below and let us know your thoughts!?