Worldline, [Euronext: WLN] European leader in the payments and transactional services industry, announces that it has obtained an A- rating following its first assessment by the CDP disclosure, which is recognized by the investors as the best reference rating for a company’s environmental awareness, governance and leadership to address climate change. As part of this exercise, Worldline reveals its long term Science Based Target (SBT) objectives to reduce CO2 emissions.
Worldline has significantly strengthened its focus and actions to fight the effects of climate change ever since the Paris Agreement came into effect in November 2016. As part of its robust strategy, Worldline is committed to implementing all the necessary actions, in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), to accelerate its transformation to become a low-carbon company by reducing the carbon intensity and energy consumption of its activities.
As part of its TRUST 2020 program, Worldline has made a special commitment to reduce its carbon intensity by 2,67% each year, to move to renewable energies in its energy consumption, extend the ISO 14001 certification to all its strategic data centers and sites with more than 500 employees and to reach carbon neutrality for all its activities.
CDP Rating
CDP provides a score based on the disclosure about a company’s actions to contribute to climate change mitigation, adaptation and transparency. Actions which are more fundamental to progress on combating climate change are awarded additional points. The scoring is designed to harness the competitive spirit of business to raise their ambition and spur action on corporate sustainability.
The rating for Worldline demonstrates that the company is ready to take another step forward, even more ambitious to play an active role in the fight against climate change at the European level. This comprehensive exercise was the opportunity for Worldline to re-assess and challenge its current climate strategy and action plan by having a quantifiable, financial and scientific approach of the environmental impact related to its business. Thanks to this transversal approach and methodology, Worldline has been able to better structure its environmental ambition, strategy and commitments, which have led to define two tangible and long term Science Based Target objectives:
- Reducing the intensity of Worldline Group CO2 emissions by 2025 and by 2035 compared to our anticipated growth, which implies a reduction in absolute terms;
- Encouraging Worldline 100 main suppliers to define SBT targets and ambition themselves, which covers the scope 3 that is the most significant for Worldline in terms of GHG emissions.
The CDP rating is also aligned with the TCFD (Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures), created in 2016 at the request of G20 ministers and supported by more than 340 leading investors. The objective of the TCFD is to make recommendations to help companies strengthen their climate governance. Following Worldline's TCFD gap analysis, the company carried out a financial assessment of its main climate risks and opportunities.
In collaboration with CDP, the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), World Resources Institute (WRI), and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and one of the We Mean Business Coalition commitments, the SBT initiative aims to provide companies with a clearly defined pathway on how much and how quickly they need to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Targets adopted by companies to reduce GHG 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 – to limit global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C.
