For a summary of the ways in which Dassault Systèmes integrates environmental considerations into our operations, download our full Environmental Statement.
We also find the 4-dimensional approach of the industry-led Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosures to be a useful framework for outlining our methodology to manage the critical issue of environmental sustainability. Read below to find out about our company’s approach to addressing the risks linked to our environmental impact, with a particular emphasis on climate action.
Governance
Sustainability issues, including climate risks, are core to the strategy of Dassault Systèmes and are managed at the highest level of corporate governance.
- At the Board of Directors level: Dassault Systèmes has designated a lead Director responsible for Sustainability issues, including climate risks, and their annual oversight. Sustainability criteria such as climate-related criteria have been integrated into the variable remuneration scheme of the Vice-Chairman and CEO.
- At the Executive Committee level: the company’s Executive Vice President in charge of Industry, Marketing and Sustainability is responsible for ensuring the seamless integration of Sustainability and climate impact mitigation within all key strategic decisions of the company.
- The company’s Chief Sustainability Officer is responsible for the definition and implementation of our Sustainability strategy, and is the Secretary of the company’s Sustainability Committee. The Sustainability Committee brings together the leaders of all key business functions on a quarterly basis, to discuss progress on transversal issues
- On an operational level: the central Sustainability team coordinates a community of sustainability contacts across business functions, geographies, brands, and industries. The Environmental Management teams ensure follow-up and feedback on environmental footprint reporting and action plans.
Strategy
Our approach to climate change takes into account both our environmental footprint and the handprint of our products and services.
- Footprint: Our approach to managing our direct footprint include many levers:
- Real Estate and Facilities: Select eco-efficient workplaces, sort ordinary waste and deploy ISO 50 001 certification when relevant,
- Procurement: Purchase low carbon energy, evaluate the sustainability performance of purchased products and initiate dialogue with key suppliers. More detail on our purchasing policies can be found here.
- Information Technology: challenge data centers’ energy efficiency, extend hardware lifespan and manage e-waste
Read Chapter 2 of our Annual Report for a more complete description of our environmental actions and KPIs.
- Handprint: we recognize that climate change and pressures on natural resources means managing risks as well as capturing the enormous opportunities related to the sustainable transformation of the economy. A key tenant of our climate and environmental risks mitigation strategy is the development of solutions that enable our clients to minimize their own environmental footprint. This includes offering solutions for virtual prototyping to avoid wasted materials in the product development and testing phase, or creating intelligent cities designed to optimize use of resources within urban areas.
Risk Management
Identifying and mapping Dassault Systèmes’ key Sustainability issues is the point of departure of our Sustainability strategy. To conduct this mapping, we rely on internal input and also external expertise, notably the framework provided by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB).
The SASB Materiality Map highlights the most material Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) issues for the sector. These are presented in the table below.
Following a detailed review with internal stakeholders, these issues are indeed considered as material not only for the sector broadly but also for Dassault Systèmes, and as such are addressed in more detail in the Chapters 1 and 2 of our Annual Report.
One of the most critical risks identified by both SASB and our internal stakeholders is the management of energy consumption and its related impact on the climate. This risk is reviewed regularly as part of the Sustainability updates provided both to the Sustainability Committee, group Executive Committee, and the Board of Directors via the dedicated Sustainability lead.
Consult Chapter 2 of our Annual Report for a detailed assessment of these material risks and opportunities.
Metrics and Targets
At Dassault Systèmes, we recognize that to manage our climate risks, which is one of our most critical risks as outlined above, we need to measure our impact and set out targets. We report on environmental targets and KPIs in Chapter 2 of our Annual Report.
Metrics
We use the “GHG Protocol” to analyze our carbon emissions. The assessment of greenhouse gas emissions includes:
- Scope 1, related to emissions from owned or controlled sources.
- Scope 2, related to indirect emissions from the generation of purchased electricity, steam, heating and cooling.
- Scope 3, related to other relevant indirect emissions in our value chain, such as purchase of goods or use of goods sold.
See below chart for a view on our carbon intensity per employee in 2018 vs. 2019, and p. 59 of our Annual Report for a full view of our environmental indicators
Note on Scope 3 emissions from Use of Goods Sold:
The use of our solutions involves energy consumption by our customers, which varies according to the application and utilization time. Under the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, emissions related to web-based software are considered “direct use-phase emissions”, notably when the software provider controls the energy sources of the data centers supporting its use. On the other hand, emissions related to software used “on premise” by customers could be considered rather as “indirect use-phase emissions”, since the energy sources and consumption depend entirely on the customer’s own infrastructure, and are usually already reported within the customer’s own Scope 2 GHG reporting (emissions from purchased energy).
Unfortunately, Dassault Systèmes is unable to collect specific Scope 3 data directly from customers or hyperscalers to calculate accurately this consumption. Nevertheless, in 2018, we defined a methodology to estimate associated greenhouse gas emissions based on a hypothesis about the number of users, the average consumption per user and the application of energy emission factors.
In 2019, we reinforced the initial methodology in order to consolidate the estimation of number of users. The results of this analysis can be found on page 54 of our 2019 Annual Report. However, the uncertainty factor behind this data remains very high, and significant work still needs to be done at the ICT sector level in order to develop a robust methodology that gives an accurate picture in terms of climate impact.
Targets
Dassault Systèmes announced in December 2020 its commitment to set a science-based target through the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), a global initiative that helps companies establish science-based targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transform business operations to fit the future low-carbon economy. In doing so, Dassault Systèmes commits to define a roadmap to reduce its emissions in line with the best available climate science.
Targets adopted by companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are considered “science-based” if they are in line with what the latest climate science says is necessary to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. This international accord aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change and limit global warming to well-below 2oC above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5oC.
As a company committed to and based on science, it is only natural for us to now aim for the highest standard in emissions targets: the Science Based Target initiative. We believe that climate change is not only one of the world’s greatest risks, it is also one of the greatest opportunities in history for sustainable innovation.
Ambitious climate action is needed now, not in a few years’ time. The Science Based Targets initiative is one way for us to ensure that we at Dassault Systèmes are fully playing our part both within our own operations and as we help our 270,000 customers transition to more sustainable models.
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