Firmenich Pushes for Progress at UN Climate Action Summit

GENEVA, Sept. 24, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Pushing for a zero-carbon future during the United Nations Climate Week, Firmenich, the world's largest privately-owned perfume and taste company, is mobilizing business and governments to tackle climate change with a sense of urgency. Firmenich CEO, Gilbert Ghostine engaged in dialogue with global business leaders and Heads of State in New York on the actions needed to ensure global warming does not exceed 1.5°C.

"Stepping up leadership and measurable actions to tackle climate change is a necessity. Business, government and society need to shift gears and work together for exponential climate progress," said Gilbert Ghostine, CEO, Firmenich. "With our science-based targets, we are making great inroads on our vision to be carbon neutral. For instance, today we operate exclusively with renewable electricity across Europe, North America and Brazil and are well on our way to achieving 100% worldwide by 2020."

One of only 36 UN Global Compact LEAD companies, Firmenich has been an active member of the business coalition for over a decade. Firmenich is one of 28 visionary companies on the "Business Ambition for 1.5C: Our Only Future" coalition, championed by the UN Global Compact. Together they have set 1.5°C science-based emissions reduction targets for a net-zero carbon future by no later than 2050.

In New York, Dr. Bérangère Magarinos-Ruchat, VP Global Head of Sustainability, took centre stage in a high level UN discussion to urgently rally more business leaders on zero carbon future: "At Firmenich, everyone has a role to play in climate change mitigation, and it is a critical pillar of our inclusive capitalism business strategy," said Dr. Bérangère Magarinos-Ruchat. "The science is clear: in order to limit the catastrophic impacts of climate change, we must ensure warming does not exceed 1.5°C. Our science-based targets give us a clear roadmap to a zero-carbon future."

Firmenich set itself the most ambitious environmental goals with the vision to become carbon neutral. With the UN SDGs embedded across its growth strategy, Firmenich was recognized as a global environmental leader this year, one of only two companies worldwide, out of more than 7000, to have achieved "triple As" with CDP, in Climate, Water and Forestry. Stepping up its climate action, Firmenich has successfully decoupled its manufacturing output from its CO₂ emissions, with output up 18% and emissions down by 30% since 2015. This year, Firmenich also joined RE100, accelerating its commitment to zero carbon power supply alongside more than 194 of the world's most influential companies. Today, Firmenich manufacturing sites throughout Europe, North America and Brazil operate with 100% renewable electricity and the Group is currently at 86% worldwide.

To hear more about how Firmenich is embedding the UN SDGs across it business, watch the video here. 

About Firmenich

Firmenich is the world's largest privately-owned perfume and taste company, founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1895. Driven by its purpose to create positive emotions to enhance wellbeing, naturally, Firmenich has designed many of the world's best-known perfumes and tastes, bringing delight to over four billion consumers every day. Renowned for its world-class research and creativity, as well as its leadership in sustainability, each year, Firmenich invests 10% of its turnover in R&D to understand and share the best that nature has to offer responsibly. Firmenich had an annual turnover of 3.7 billion Swiss Francs at end June 2018. More information about Firmenich is available at www.firmenich.com

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