
Supplier emissions
Our divisions work closely with suppliers to
reduce emissions profiles of products in order
to meet the expectations of the markets, which
are becoming more and more environmentally
conscious. One key action is to improve the
transparency of product-related emissions by
providing more granular EPDs to our customers
which require ABB to obtain PCFs from its sup-
pliers and to include them into LCAs and prod-
uct circularity assessments.
In our supply chain, we pay close attention to
using lower-carbon transport options, low-
er-carbon materials with renewable or recycled
content and innovative materials that weigh less
but provide comparable quality performance.
Collaborating closely with suppliers to identify
potential supply chain emissions reductions
and incentivizing investments that are secur-
ing the supply of these materials today and in
the future are key focus areas. ABB has also
joined the Center for Decarbonization Demand
Acceleration (CDDA), curated by the WBCSD,
to join industry efforts to increase availability
of these materials and solutions. Initiatives
to source materials closer to manufacturing
locations are another way to reduce emissions
in the supply chain and are encouraged under
the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism
(CBAM) with other jurisdictions expected to
follow. Tracking of PCF plus transport emissions
on a per shipment basis provides ABB with the
required insights to make informed and timely
decisions on how to adjust its supply base and
transport lanes.
As part of our ambitions to reduce our scope 3
emissions, we continue to work with our suppli-
ers to enable them to reduce emissions in their
own operations and in their upstream supply
chain. The emissions captured in our reporting
on purchased goods and services (scope 3,
category 1 as per the Greenhouse Gas Protocol)
reflect the footprint of the full supply chain, up
to the origins of raw materials. This is why we
seek to engage not only with our Tier 1 suppli-
ers, but also with Tier 2 suppliers and beyond.
Since 2023, we have provided information and
training sessions to our suppliers and collected
information via our supply chain emissions re-
duction program. This has provided us with an
understanding of the maturity of our suppliers
and their suppliers and of where to prioritize
our engagement to reach our target. We are re-
questing our key suppliers to use the EcoVadis
platform to report their overall emissions, and
to indicate their emission reduction plans and
progress against targets.
In 2024, we completed a mapping of ABB’s
emissions from 100 percent of supplier cate-
gories, identifying greenhouse gas emissions
hot spots. The top 10 material groups account
for over half of the emissions from purchased
goods and services. These hot spots were the
focus of our engagement with suppliers, as we
seek to understand more about the key mate-
rials that are responsible for the emissions of
these suppliers and how ABB can collaborate
with these suppliers to drive decarbonization.
Customer emissions
ABB products and solutions support the power,
industry, transport, and buildings sectors in
optimizing, electrifying, and decarbonizing. We
have three means through which we contribute
to the energy transition:
• increased efficiency through automation,
high efficiency motors and drives, and
industrial software;
• substituting fossil-fuel combustion for pro-
cesses and propulsion by electrification; and
• detection and avoidance of leakages of GHGs
like methane and other harmful substances.
At ABB, by far the largest contribution we can
make to a low-carbon society is in our custom-
ers’ operations, as the largest proportion of
our overall value chain GHG emissions sits in
our scope 3 downstream emissions from the
use of sold products. Our sold products require
significant amounts of energy and, depending
on the local energy mix of a country, this may
lead to significant GHG emissions. In order to
reduce the absolute emissions of our products
sold, we use several levers, constantly pushing
innovation to bring energy consumption further
down. Through our comprehensive offerings,
we are speeding up the decarbonization of grid
systems, promoting innovation to integrate re-
newables into the energy mix. We look for ways
to reduce the energy demand of our offerings by
improving the energy efficiency of our products
and providing customers with solutions that are
designed to enable them to electrify their op-
erations. Efficient electric motors for example
are used in many cases to replace fossil-based
solutions. In addition, we provide our customers
with information about the power consumed
and emissions avoided by our offerings. Given
the current megatrend of digitalization and
artificial intelligence, which comes with a sig-
nificantly increased energy need in data centers,
ABB plays an important role in providing en-
ergy efficient mission-critical power solutions.
To help our customers reduce emissions, we
provide end-to-end support, which includes
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ABB
INTEGRATED REPORT 2024
Introduction
Value creation
Good governance
Performance-based compensation
Appendix
Outputs and Outcomes