Our Journey to Fight Climate Change
Climate change is one of the greatest threats to human health. As a global healthcare company, we’re focused on improving people’s lives. Today, that goes hand-in hand-with preserving a healthy planet.
We have to act now to fight climate change and its impacts, especially in vulnerable communities. That’s why we are building the road towards net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045 across our operations and value chain. And we’re making progress.
Turning climate ambition into action
The road to carbon neutrality and net zero spans our full value chain. Our workforce is around 86,000 people strong, and our global network of suppliers and partners is vast. And we all need be united in our collective actions to truly protect the planet.
That’s where Planet Care comes in. It’s how we pull together, both in-house and with our suppliers, to turn our ambition into actions that really matter.
Climate change is acknowledged as one of the biggest health threats facing humanity and demands urgent action.1 The impacts are clear and are increasing with devastating results: rapidly melting polar ice, rising sea levels, and extreme weather events like flooding, heat waves, and drought are destroying homes, and contaminating water and air quality.
Due to the urgency, we've accelerated our commitments and are strengthening our resilience to the environmental challenges which could impact our abilities to support our patients and chase the miracles of science. This ranges from mitigating dependencies on natural resources to addressing the growing impact of climate on human health.
Towards net zero, our priority is to reduce emissions across our value chain to the maximum, and then offset what cannot be reduced. We've chosen to complement our reduction strategy with a voluntary carbon offsetting strategy, and to also generate positive impacts for both local populations and their environment within all our projects.
Our journey began with the launch of two pilot projects in 2022: The Sundari Mangrove Restoration project, developed by EcoAct and its local partner, started first with the rehabilitation of 420 hectares of degraded mangroves in India; and the Dziva Cookstoves project with the distribution of 18,250 energy-saving biomass cookstoves in Kenya.
Since 2022, we have made progress on these two projects: 380 hectares of mangrove have been planted in India and all the 18,250 cookstoves have been distributed in Kenya, with the support and engagement of local communities. Following this success, we expanded our efforts with two additional projects in 2023. We have reaffirmed our support for the Sundari Mangrove Restoration project by engaging in the restoration of an additional 3,750 hectares of degraded mangroves - a vital part of one the biggest mangrove ecosystems in the world. We are also supporting the “Pungue Water Access project “developed by Removall and its local partner to rehabilitate 1,040 water handpumps over several districts in Mozambique, thus providing clean water access to 312,000 people.
Our Reduction Commitments
- Reducing our GHG emissions from our activities (Scopes 1 & 2) by 55% by 2030
- Sourcing 100% renewable electricity across all our operations by 2030
- Converting our sales car fleet to an eco-fleet by 2030
- Reducing GHG emissions from our value chain (Scope 3) by 30% by 2030
Reducing our GHG emissions
On the reduction front, we’ve set up action plans to reduce and optimize our energy consumption, design new factories with the lowest environmental footprint (scopes 1 & 2) and work with suppliers to reduce GHG emissions across our full value chain (scope 3).
And we’re already seeing the impact of our actions plans. We reduced our carbon footprint by 38% between 2019 and 2022. And our 55% reduction target is validated by the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi), which is a scientific recognition of our contribution to limit global warming to 1.5 ° C.
Sourcing renewable electricity
As a member of the RE100 initiative, we’ve publicly committed to sourcing 100% renewable electricity across all our operations by 2030. Renewable electricity already powers all our operations in France, and 79% of our energy needs overall.
To do more, we are also producing some of our own renewable electricity. In Australia, France, India, Italy we’ve installed solar panel systems which are saving tons of CO2e.
Fostering an eco-fleet
Last but not least, as a signatory of the Zero Emission Vehicles declaration, we’re moving fast to transition to zero-emission vehicles. Electric vehicles are an important way to decrease emissions across our sales car fleet. We’ve pledged toward a carbon-neutral car fleet by 2030, bringing us even closer to the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Investing in great ideas
It’s individual people who are making the difference at Sanofi. From the offices to the labs, from factory to pharmacy, we’re all united in our goal to mitigate our impact on the environment to improve lives.
We’re channeling all that dedication and energy through the Planet Care program, to empower our people to do more for the planet. We empower our employees to move beyond the status quo and pursue bold and visionary ideas by investing €3 million every year to transform their ideas into concrete actions that reduce our environmental impact. When we see a great idea, we invest in it.
Our future depends on our actions today. Everyone has a part to play.
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2022) Climate change: a threat to human wellbeing and health of the planet. Taking action now can secure our future. Accessed 28 October 2022