We want ENGIE to be the champion of "zero carbon energy" and our integrated model gives us a unique position in the market to offer our customers a 360° decarbonisation strategy. ENGIE Impact, the Group's leading entity helping businesses implement sustainable transformation solutions, will soon publish its annual ENGIE Impact Net Zero Report on how businesses are stepping up their decarbonisation initiatives. Mathias Lelievre, CEO of ENGIE Impact, revealed the first key findings at Climate Week NYC 2022: the gap between zero carbon strategies and their operational reality is narrowing, but there is still a lot of progress to be made.
Four drivers to transform strategy into action
- Responsibility: a decarbonisation roadmap requires strong commitment from business leaders. Unlike other projects, which they can hand over once they have determined strategy, zero carbon requires their supervision right through to site-level implementation, energy management and ongoing reporting. To step up, decarbonisation must be included in managers' traditional performance goals (budget, profit, etc.). Today, only 57% of the business leaders surveyed include decarbonisation in their performance goals.
>> All of ENGIE’s senior executives benefit from a Performance Share Plan conditional on achieving targets for reducing CO2 emissions and increasing the share of renewable energy (see our Climate Policy).
- Data centralisation: only 40% of businesses centralise their decarbonisation data. Yet, these companies often operate in regions with different energy transition levels. A global, centralized sustainability team should be able to identify cross-region opportunities and efficiencies.
>> Discover the ENGIE Impact platform, a centralised, cross-functional tool to help our customers reduce their costs and achieve their sustainable development goals..
- Sustainable finance: slow application of sustainable finance models is the third barrier to implementation of zero carbon strategies. Only a third of businesses have already adopted them. But mindsets are changing and 70% of those that haven't aim to apply them by 2025.
- New technologies: 30% of business leaders see the risks associated with new unproven technologies as a barrier to investment. Or the required technology may simply not yet be available. And yet, short-term investments or partnerships are a vital tool for reducing carbon emissions, along with research and innovation.