News - June 25, 2019
Schneider Electric partners with the Solar Impulse Foundation to accelerate the ecological transition
Written by Tristan Lebleu 3 min read
The Solar Impulse Foundation announced a new partnership with Schneider Electric, one of the world’s leading companies in Energy Management, Industrial Automation, and Services, through the Schneider Electric Foundation.
This partnership was announced by Bertrand Piccard, Chairman of the Solar Impulse Foundation and Jean-Pascal Tricoire, CEO of Schneider Electric and President of the Schneider Electric Foundation.
Schneider Electric will contribute to the Solar Impulse Foundation’s mission to select 1000 clean, efficient and profitable solutions by providing its extensive knowledge in different areas such as electricity management, renewables, industrial innovation. Some experts from Schneider Electric have already contributed to the mission, such as Nicolas Plain, a research engineer working on renewable energy mini-grids for Africa, but the Schneider Electric Foundation aims to mobilize many more by promoting the project within Schneider Electric.
“By contributing to this project through the Schneider Electric Foundation, we want to push our employees to develop new solutions and implement the available ones,” stated Jean-Pascal Tricoire, Chairman and CEO of Schneider Electric and President of the Schneider Electric Foundation. “The Solar Impulse and Schneider Electric Foundations are both pragmatic organisations. Bertrand Piccard and I believe in innovation and creating solutions to fight climate change. The Schneider Electric Foundation aims to move forward in this pioneering spirit. Its role is to act as a catalyst of technological, social and entrepreneurial innovation, which will help close the energy gap and promote a fairer environmental transition worldwide.”
Schneider Electric will also bring its own innovations into the 1000 solutions portfolio, which span from buildings to industry, from cities to data centers, to drive energy all to do more with less. The company has already submitted solutions to the Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Label, such as Homaya, a complete photovoltaic electrification system for isolated homes, and Mobyia, a solar-powered system for lighting and charging communications devices.
The group has invested heavily in innovation to achieve its ambitious environmental and social goals, with a clear action plan for the coming 15 years. Schneider has noticeably announced it would, by 2025, invest $10B in R&D, train 1 million underprivileged people in energy management, phase out sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) completely, provide energy access to 50 million people, and support 10,000 entrepreneurs. By 2030, it aims for carbon-neutrality.
Such ambitious goals and clear paths from a company with over €25 billion in revenue and over 155’000 employees are examples for every big company, that becoming sustainable while being a top leading company is not only possible, but actually beneficial, as stated by Bertrand Piccard :
“The successful companies of tomorrow are those who understand the need to act in energy efficiency today and have seized all the opportunities offered by the protection of the environment. Through this partnership with the Solar Impulse Foundation, Schneider Electric is again showing a pioneering spirit and proves that it is fully aware of its role in the ecological transition. Together, we will make every effort to accelerate the selection of profitable solutions that can protect the environment and we will work towards their large-scale deployment.”
Written by Tristan Lebleu on June 25, 2019
