Sustainability has become “existential challenge” for companies – Siemens

German industrial giant Siemens regards industrial companies' responsibility to become more environmentally friendly as a defining task of the future and says it wants to step up its efforts to reduce CO2 emissions in the supply chain, business daily Handelsblatt reports. "We make purchases for 28 billion euros every year, which is a strong lever," Siemens's head of sustainability, Jenny Bofinger-Schuster, told the newspaper. The company wants to reduce CO2 emissions in its supply chain by 20 percent by 2030 and aims to become climate-neutral by 2050. According to Siemens’s latest sustainability report, the company itself has reduced its operational CO2 emissions by 26 percent in the past two years. Pressure to go green is coming from investors and fund managers, many of whom will only invest in companies that meet sustainability criteria, Handelsblatt writes. "Sustainability has become an existential challenge for companies,” Bofinger-Schuster said, with questions about the topic becoming “more and more detailed.”

Last year, Siemens received international criticism for signing a supply contract with a coal-fired power plant in Indonesia and participating in the Adani coal mine project in Australia. Togehter with other large industrial companies, Siemens is at the heart of Germany's efforts to decarbonise its renowned heavy industry sector, for which the switch to renewable power sources and and a comprehensive green hydrogen infrastructure are considered as key elements.