World Economic Forum recognizes Schneider Electric as a Circularity Lighthouse

January 24, 2024 – Schneider Electric, the leader in the digital transformation of energy management and automation, today announced that it has been recognized by the World Economic Forum and McKinsey as one of three global Circularity Lighthouses in the built environment.

This new designation recognizes pioneering circularity solutions that demonstrate innovation, substantial impact and value, and maturity of scale. The new lighthouses were selected by an independent panel of experts from industry, academia, and public life.

The World Economic Forum defines the built environment as residential and commercial infrastructure. Together, this is responsible for 39% of energy-related CO2 emissions, 33% of material consumption and waste generation, and 25% of land system change. The Forum’s Circular Lighthouse network provides companies a way to share and learn from one another to rapidly accelerate action and scale for greater resource efficiency.

Schneider Electric was recognized by the World Economic Forum and McKinsey for its end-to-end circular approach across a broad portfolio of its energy and building automation solutions. Through eco- design, waste-to-resources sites, and a global network of refurbishment centers, Schneider Electric has avoided approximately 513 million tons of CO2 to customers since 2017.

The company also uses 27% green materials across its products with the ambition to reach 50% by 2025. 22% of Schneider Electric’s product families have a circularity option, and more than half of Schneider Electric’s manufacturing sites recover more than 99% of waste.

“Circular business models offer compelling sustainability and commercial benefits,” said Peter Herweck, Schneider Electric’s Chief Executive Officer. “We look forward to the opportunities this new Circularity Lighthouse network offers to learn, share, and accelerate action.”

One example is how Schneider Electric gives its MasterPact MTZ circuit breakers a second life. Refurbished at the MasterTech plant in France, these circuit breakers are collected from customers at the end of life, disassembled, diagnosed, upgraded and tested before being put back on the market.

At the recent World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Herweck also urged that greater deployment of existing technologies is needed to keep climate change from spiraling out of control. 

“With energy accounting for 80% of carbon emissions, the energy transition is central to decarbonization. The potential of AI is currently capturing everyone's attention. But let’s not forget that existing technologies – both renewable energy generation and digital and electrification tools that lower energy demand by rendering sites and operations far more energy efficient – can sharply reduce emissions now. There’s no time to wait for tomorrow’s solutions when much more can be achieved with what we have today,” he added.

IMPACT Supply Chain Program

Circular business models and supply chain design are part of Schneider Electric’s IMPACT Supply Chain program. This is the next evolution of the company’s supply chain transformation, which aims to make a positive impact on both customers and planet. Its key pillars are:

• People – Schneider’s people are empowered to innovate and make a positive impact for customers every day.

• Planet – Schneider Electric is building a sustainable, responsible, and net-zero ready supply chain.

• Customers – Schneider Electric’s reliable supply chain delivers industry-leading quality.

• Performance – Schneider Electric drives performance through advanced technology, smart and unified processes, regional ecosystems, and collaborative design.

UPS and Partners in the Philippines Journey toward Equity and an Inclusive Future

UPS Philippines is celebrating Women’s History Month this March. Since the early days of the company’s 115-year history, women have long been equal contributors to UPS’s success. In the spirit of Women’s History Month, UPS is spotlighting how the company and its partners continue to work toward a common goal of driving greater gender equity and inclusivity.

A nation lifted by women trailblazers

Women have played a significant role in shaping the Philippines’ economy, culture, and society since its founding days. Gabriela Silang, Josefa Llanes Escoda, and Melchora Aquino fought for the country’s independence, the late former President Maria Corazon “Cory” Aquino led the country’s peaceful revolution in 1986, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa who fearlessly defended freedom of expression in the country.

With a culture that is deeply respectful of women, the Philippines ranked 19th out of 146 countries in the World Economic Forum’s 2022 Global Gender Gap Index, stripping past many nations in the East Asia and Pacific region. Filipinas’ road to achieve equality has indeed gone a long way with the passage of the Magna Carta of Women, a law which seeks to eliminate discrimination while supporting the rights of women.

Representation in manufacturing and logistics industry

Filipino women today actively participate in traditionally male-dominated industries including manufacturing and logistics. The consciousness on equality and inclusivity ushered in positive changes in business leadership.

“Having more women in manufacturing and logistics brings diverse perspectives and ideas to the table, which can lead to more innovative solutions to business problems,” said Russell Reed, managing director of UPS Philippines and Thailand.

Reed said UPS has actively built an inclusive workplace where employees have equal opportunities to contribute and succeed. The company’s values are rooted in equity and inclusion that thrives inside and outside its walls. Female employees are encouraged to participate in leadership development, mentorship, and networking opportunities internally, to empower them for growth.

Partnering with like-minded businesses

UPS partners with manufacturers like Teradyne Philippines, LHK Creation, Inc., and Gameville Corporation who advocate gender equity.

In 2020, testing equipment maker Teradyne launched Women In Teradyne (WIT), a program aimed at better understanding the value of increasing women representation in its workforce. Jacqueline Briones, an executive at Teradyne, took part in the WIT training and went on to formulate programs aimed at nurturing a more diverse workforce.

Moreover, Briones, who serves as worldwide parts service operations director and Philippines site director for Teradyne, also established a diversity, equality and inclusion program in Cebu. One of the program’s focus is to increase the proportion of women employees, including in leadership roles, from 30% to 35% in two years.

LHK Creation, Inc., a garment producer for brands like J.Crew, Chico’s, Banana Republic and Brooks Brothers, is a business mostly run by women. Women account
for 66% of its management and leadership team.

General Manager Fe Y. Abrihan credits the company’s resilience, adaptability, and flexibility to such a workforce mix, which was evidenced when the company withstood challenges brought about by the pandemic that disrupted production in 2020 and 2021 and the Taal volcano eruption in 2020.

With women being a majority in the company and many married with children, LHK established an employees' grocer that stocks powdered milk, soaps, sugar, cooking oil, rice, and other necessities at wholesale prices. It also set up a fund to provide cash advances at zero interest and with longer payment terms for employees to pay for tuition fees, hospitalization bills, as capital for setting up a small business, or buying a personal vehicle for transportation needs.

Gameville Corporation, a manufacturer of sports uniforms, also pursues equity and inclusion for employees and customers, according to the company’s Finance
Officer, Arlene Balagbagan.

Balagbagan stressed that gender doesn’t define a staff’s role in the company. All individuals are encouraged to find opportunities that can help them grow professionally. Through the leadership of Gameville’s empowered female managers, Balagbagan practices an open-door policy culture in the company to build an environment where help can be easily sought.

Journeying to closing the gender gap

While it will take the world another 257 years – according to the World Economic Forum – to achieve economic gender equity, companies like UPS and its partners
are continuing to do their part to bridge the gap.

For UPS, equity means creating and sustaining an inclusive world that removes gender stereotypes and discrimination. The Women’s Leadership Development committee organizes activities – financial literacy seminars, donation drives and social gatherings – to promote the growth of female UPS employees.

Beyond the workplace, the company is strengthening its support for women-owned small businesses through The UPS Foundation’s
Women Exporters Program (WEP).
The WEP has helped nearly 31,000 women exporters globally to overcome free trade barriers through partnerships with government agencies, non-governmental organizations and other stakeholders.

UPS also partnered with The Asian Trade Centre Foundation in 2022 for the
Asia Women Exporters’ Mentorship Program,
which allows women business owners in Asia to learn digital entrepreneurial skills, and be better equipped to boost their competitiveness and
cross-border trade.

The road to gender equity is an ongoing one. The company continues to invest in training, such as unconscious bias training to ensure employees are aware of what biases they may bring to work and how they affect those around them. To date, more than 95% of management employees have completed the training.


About UPS

UPS is one of the world’s largest companies, with 2022 revenue of $100.3 billion, and provides a broad range of integrated logistics solutions for customers in more than 220 countries and territories. Focused on its purpose statement, “Moving our world forward by delivering what matters,” the company’s more than 500,000 employees embrace a strategy that is simply stated and powerfully executed: Customer First. People Led.

Innovation Driven. UPS is committed to reducing its impact on the environment and supporting the communities we serve around the world. UPS also takes an unwavering stance in support of diversity, equity and inclusion. More information can be found at www.ups.com,
about.ups.com and www.investors.ups.com.

PH SCORES BIG IN THE 2018 GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS REPORT

The Philippines’ (PH) ranking in the 2018 Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) significantly improved to 56th from 68th place in a report released recently by the World Economic Forum (WEF). The 2018 GCR covers 140 economies representing 99% of global GDP and 94% of world population. PH is one of the few countries which gained double digit increase in its ranking.

This year’s GCR adopted a new index called the Global Competitiveness Index 4.0 (GCI 4.0), which is a “composite indicator” with 98 indicators distributed across 12 pillars. GCI 4.0 derived its results from data providers such as the World Bank, WTO, IATA (air connectivity), ITC (for tariffs) and the Executive Opinion Survey administered by the World Economic Forum. The GCI 4.0 uses a “distance to frontier” approach in which performance is evaluated against the frontier of 100.

As the new GCI cannot be compared with the old index, WEF adjusted the 2017 results in order to provide a reference point, and released a 2017 “backcast edition.” PH’s performance improved as measured by its overall distance to frontier (DTF) score of 62.1 in the 2018 GCI versus 59.8 last year. PH posted improvements in all pillars and maintained its good macroeconomy stability performance with a DTF score of 90.

DTI Secretary Ramon Lopez noted the brand new methodology of the Global Competitiveness Index and supported the call for governments to address the factors that will fully capture the dynamics of the global economy in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, namely resilience, agility, human capital, and innovation.

"From day one, the Duterte Administration has worked on various reform initiatives to improve the country’s competitiveness. The recent positive performance in the refined GCI is a testament of the fruits of all of these reform initiatives, and we are gearing up for better. We are optimistic that with our ongoing reform initiatives with the enactment of the EODB/ Efficient Government Act, and efforts to promote government technology, the country will move us further closer to the frontier,” said Sec. Lopez.

The country also scored high on e-participation index (DTF: 93.82) under Pillar 1: Institutions. The e-participation index measures an economy’s use of online services to facilitate provision of information by governments to citizens (e-information sharing), interaction with stakeholders (e-consultation), and engagement in decision-making processes (e-decision making).

The trade chief also noted the relatively lower (DTF) scores across all countries when it comes to mastering the innovation process, from idea generation to product commercialization.

Sec. Lopez confirmed that recent government efforts point to this track through the Inclusive Innovation Industrial Strategy (i3S) as well as the Inclusive Filipinnovation & Entrepreneurship Roadmap. These will foster development in the country’s innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem by strengthening the collaboration between academe/research community, industry, and government with focus on market-oriented research that would address societal problems and industry issues.

Through an MOU, DTI together with the departments of Science and Technology (DOST), Agriculture (DA), Information and Communications Technology (DICT), Education (DepEd), and the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) committed to jointly implement the recommendations of the Filipinnovation Roadmap.