Worldline, a global leader in payments services confirms its leadership in sustainability, strengthening its performance in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), according to the latest rating by Moody’s ESG Solutions, an ESG (Environment, Social, Governance) data and assessments provider.
With a 1-point increase to its overall score compared to last year, Worldline continually pursues its ambition to meet its most critical CSR challenges in the areas of business, people, ethics, supply chain, the environment, and local communities.
Through its continuous improvement approach supported by its ambitious Trust 2025 transformation programme, Worldline progresses one place in the ranking and is 4th amongst the top five businesses in the European IT & Software services sector. According to Moody’s, Worldline’s ESG scores are significantly higher than the sector’s average in all three areas.
Rewarded efforts in carbon footprint reduction and energy transition
With a solid score of 78/100 in the environmental area, Worldline has once again demonstrated its strong commitment to tackling climate change. The company’s environmental strategy is based on three strategic axes: lowering its energy consumption; reducing its carbon footprint; and offsetting all its remaining emissions – mainly by supporting forest preservation. To reach its objectives, Worldline has set itself ambitious greenhouse gas emission (GHG) reduction objectives and commits to achieving them in the following way:
- Scopes 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 25% by 2025 compared to the base year 2019 in line with a 1.5°C global warming limitation trajectory;
- Scope 3 GHG emissions from purchased goods and services and the use of sold products by 7.4% within the same timeframe.
These climate commitments are aligned with the criteria and recommendations of the SBTi (Science Based Targets initiative) 4.2 version and of the TCFD (Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures). Among the concrete numerous initiatives that led to further movement to carbon neutrality, Worldline focuses on implementing a far-reaching energy efficiency plan for its offices and business travel, decreasing the energy consumption of cooling equipment and increasing the use of virtualisation in its data centres. In 2021, Worldline achieved a 49% reduction in tCO2e emissions of its scopes 1 & 2 and a 100% offsetting of the remaining emissions of its scopes 1, 2 & 3a.
An efficient responsible employer strategy
Regarding the social area, Worldline has obtained a score of 60/100 with a 2-point gain. Supported by its responsible employer strategy, Worldline’s ambition is twofold: fostering people development, well-being and engagement while promoting fairness, diversity and inclusion.
Worldline has reinforced its career, skills development and training initiatives to attract and develop the best talent and guarantee their development over the long term. Reflecting a high level of investment in skills development, Worldline recorded a seven-point improvement in the score awarded by its employees regarding training on the annual Great Place to Work® 2021 survey.
Diversity and inclusion action plans set to ensure fairness, equity and non-discrimination towards the organisation have demonstrated steady progress. As a result, in 2021, 34% of the total workforce were female, as well as making up 37% of new joiners. The ratio of women in the company’s top 3,200 management positions has increased from 22% to 23.2% (target of 35% set for 2025). In the countries with national targets for the employment of people with disabilities, Worldline has seen an increase of 6%. Worldline global UNITED network plays a key role in organising events to raise awareness of all forms of diversity, including LGBTQIA.
A robust and committed governance
Worldline’s score has improved by 3 points, reaching a score of 58/100, which has been supported by the high level of commitment of its governance bodies in the company’s CSR strategy. Since 2019, Worldline has reinforced dedicated governance structures and incentive mechanisms in place to ensure its CSR strategy is implemented throughout the company. As an example, the Social and Environmental Responsibility Committee (SERC) is one of the Board of Directors’ five specialist committee whose principal role is to support the work of the Board to provide effective CSR governance of Worldline.
Sébastien Mandron, CSR Officer at Worldline said: “This new recognition of our CSR performance by Moody’s is a renewed mark of encouragement for all our teams. As a global leader dedicated to shaping the future of payments, we are more committed than ever to operating carbon-efficient payment solutions that sustain viable economic growth and reinforce trust and security in our societies.
Our strategic CSR roadmap Trust 2025 will play a major role in ensuring our company can achieve this vision. It reflects the intention to scale up our commitment to excellence in CSR and to embed trust and security at the heart of all our activities.”
