While some might consider over 30 years with one company as career stagnation, nothing could be further from the truth for Olivier Blum.
For Olivier, who is approaching 32 years of employment at Schneider Electric, the longevity has been driven by varied roles across different geographies, strategic opportunities – and passion for the sustainability vision that is the beating heart of Schneider.
Few global companies come close to matching this France-headquartered energy management and industrial automation company’s sustainability focus and results. Today, Schneider has gained a reputation as The Most Sustainable Company in the World (TIME and Statista), thanks to its commitment to driving Electricity 4.0 (electrification and digitisation) and helping customers achieve their decarbonisation goals.
But as Olivier goes on to say, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5C, there must be more action from governments and regulators to balance societal needs with environmental impact, especially with the development of Artificial Intelligence and other technological advancements.
Olivier’s Journey at Schneider Electric
As the company’s EVP of Energy Management, Olivier has been involved at almost every step of Schneider’s sustainability journey.
He has taken up a range of positions in the company all around the world, from sales and marketing to strategy and HR, and finally to his current role in Energy Management.
He says: “I am fortunate to hold a unique position in the company, having gained diverse experience through various roles across different geographies.
“Our energy management business, which represents 79% of Schneider Electric’s turnover, is where we gather the portfolio of activities that help our customers to go through their decarbonisation journey.”
Olivier adds: “I've been engaged in the sustainability journey of Schneider since almost day one, 20 years ago, when we created our first strategy.
“I was working at that time for the chairman and CEO of Schneider as a chief of staff in charge of the first project.”
He says the range of roles aided his understanding of sustainability, including when he was Chief HR Officer – which “has given me another angle on ESG, more on the social side”.
He adds: “The fact that I had this combination of being in sales, marketing, product development, then at one point took over a smaller business unit globally, then HR, then chief strategy and sustainability – this combination of experience gives me a different view on my current role and the value of energy management to our customers, and of course to Schneider.”
The excitement is sustainable
When asked what excites him about the job, Olivier ties it in tightly to the company’s commitment to sustainability and its ability to drive systemic change.
He says: “Why I've been in the company for 30 years is related to your question because this company has developed a unique positioning in the market.
“We are very committed to being a sustainable company and very committed to all the pillars of ESG. But, since we are a digital partner for efficiency and sustainability, we are also committed to the solutions for our customers.”
He adds: “When you step back and say: ‘The company is investing one billion euros in R&D every year to develop the portfolio, the solutions and the technologies that will help the company to achieve its net zero goal and eventually have a positive impact at scale. That's quite exciting.”
Olivier is also invigorated every day by Schneider’s international identity.
“Schneider has always been committed to being a truly international company with a very, very diverse pool of talent.
“And I love this opportunity to work with different people, different cultures, different backgrounds.”
Sustainability as a service
While many companies provide products, Schneider Electric takes it to the next level by working as an end-to-end partner with its customers, in order to – as Olivier explains – “help them to go through their decarbonisation journey, to achieve their energy and efficiency goals”.
He adds: “We develop solutions to enable our partners in the world to decarbonise and they are important because, if you want to have an impact at scale, you need partnership everywhere. That's the mission of Schneider Electric.
“Everything we do is to try to help companies, to help our customers – large ones, medium ones, small ones – in all industries, in homes, buildings, data centres and infrastructure, to have access to energy, to optimise usage and to decarbonise their energy supply to eventually achieve their climate transition goals. This is crucial, considering the energy sector accounts for 80% of CO2 emissions.”
He adds: ”We do that everywhere in the world. We have 150,000 employees globally.
“We also have more than a million partners operating in over 100 countries to ensure proximity to our customers and stakeholders.”
The approach is clearly working. Only last month, Schneider Electric was placed 2nd in Sustainability Magazine’s 250 Companies in Sustainability.
In recent years, it was selected by Corporate Knights as the most sustainable company in the world and by Time as one of the world’s most sustainable companies.
Olivier says: “This is good because, while I'm convinced about it, it's even better when external organisations recognise and endorse that our sustainability strategy has a positive impact.”
Maintaining the momentum
“Our passion is always to understand what it will take for a company to achieve their net zero goals.”
That passion, says Olivier, drives the desire to continually reach the next level of sustainability.
He says that it requires the latest technology, consulting, services and digital systems, adding that Schneider aims to utilise these in every sector.
“The combination depends on whether you are dealing with a CEO of a large company or a consumer.”
Examples include:
Take MasterPacT, an industry leader for 35 years. Recently, we launched the Circular MTZ, where we collect, check and re-certify breakers for reuse. Additionally, we introduced the latest generation of MTZ Active breakers, enabling data centres and other energy-intensive industries to manage energy solutions and consumption, ensuring optimal operations.
Zeigo Activate, a cloud-based subscription software targeted towards small and medium enterprises. Scope 3 emissions are becoming a bigger focus, and with regulation like CSRD coming into effect, SMEs are under more pressure to decarbonise, Zeigo Activate is designed to help them meet their decarbonisation goals.
Achieving the balance between sustainability and impact
In recent years, there has been an increase in rules, regulations and legislation around environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting – making it more difficult for companies to dodge their net zero responsibilities.
For Olivier, it is unquestionably a good thing. But he says there is a difficult balance to achieve for companies like Schneider, which seek to be sustainable while having an impact.
He says: “When you standardise ESG reporting, it's good because you put a minimum expectation on everyone, but the big risk is that it becomes a compliance exercise.
“What I've learned is that becoming a sustainable company is about how the future will look and what you can do to impact the world.
“Being a sustainable company and an impact company is not about compliance, it's about finding the solution for tomorrow.”
Looking forward to COP29
Schneider endeavours to put itself at the centre of discussions and solutions to the global climate crisis.
With COP29 coming up in Baku, Azerbaijan, how would Olivier like to see it build on COP28?
He says: “Governments should continue making the same commitments they made at COP28 on the transition from fossil fuels to renewables.
“I'm not a dreamer, it cannot happen overnight. But I think making a very strong commitment every year is most important.”
His second hope is that governments will make a stronger commitment to tackling the demand side of energy.
“Supply is extremely important, but demand is 50% of the answer and there is always a much smaller focus on the demand side than the supply side.”
He adds: “How are governments going to put in incentives for people in their homes and for companies in their office buildings, to make stronger commitments on energy efficiency and decarbonisation?”
Finally, Olivier wants more action on decarbonisation of existing buildings, saying: “When you look at CO2 emission, 80% is from energy and the highest energy demand comes from the building sector.
“While constructing green buildings is paramount for our future, the real challenge for the near term – 10, 15 years – is retrofitting the existing stock of homes and buildings to make those more efficient and sustainable. 50% of buildings that will exist in 2050 already exist today. That's where we need government help and incentives."
The future is digital and electric
Schneider has a long-proven ability to adapt to challenges and to present new solutions to its customers.
This puts it in a strong position to face two of the greatest obstacles on the path to net zero – artificial intelligence and data centres.
Both have a huge and growing appetite for energy.
Schneider works with its customers to provide the energy management systems and solutions to help reduce data centre emissions.
The company is strongly committed to helping its customers decarbonise, and embeds these principles in its research & development processes to systemically reduce the environmental impact of its products and to help customers more efficiently manage their operations and transition to lower carbon sources of energy.
Schneider also has its Sustainability Research Institute, created five years ago, and its advisory division, the Sustainability Business, a leading global consultancy on energy management and decarbonisation.
Olivier says: “We have developed very specific competencies in consulting on decarbonisation and the energy transition. And our contribution through our research institute is to provide technical white papers on different decarbonisation and sustainable scenarios.
“We are trying to take the big challenges and make their solutions more actionable, more practical. What does it take to decarbonise data centres, for instance?
He adds: “We have a big consulting and research institute project to bring a white paper to show to the people at COP29 that the technology is available today.”
When it comes to AI, he says: “We know with the evolution of AI, those data centres’ appetite for energy will get bigger and bigger. What will be the technologies that will make it happen without emissions also getting bigger and bigger?”
He continues to explain that artificial intelligence can be an accelerator for the energy transition. It can help reduce carbon emissions with efficient use of energy and optimizing energy demand. AI models can create predictive energy consumption models, enhancing the efficiency of processes like HVAC systems and district heating. By managing energy storage and shifting consumption times, AI could reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
It is in the DNA of Schneider Electric to come up with solutions, not problems. And Olivier is certain that digital is a big part of the solution.
He says: “I think digital is a huge accelerator of decarbonisation. At Schneider, we always say: ‘Being sustainable is a combination of being more electrical and more digital, this is what we also call Electricity 4.0’.
“That story has been true for many years. But the fact that digital has accelerated and AI is helping us to make it simpler for our clients to receive recommendations, I do believe it's a game changer.”
Looking forward to the coming 18 months, Olivier is “optimistic”.
He says: “I believe the next 12-18 months is going to be a very interesting period.
“All the large companies and governments which have made net zero commitments will start to realise that if they want to get to their net zero commitment by 2050 – and therefore the first milestone, which is 2030 – they'll have to go twice as fast in everything they do.”
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