At LEAP, the largest tech event in the Middle East, ESG Mena caught up with Mouna Essa-Egh, Vice President MEA, Datacenter and Secure Power Business, Schneider Electric, to hear about the role of technological innovation in driving forward sustainability.
The tools for sustainability
Essa-Egh explained that Schneider Electric’s attendance at LEAP was aimed at showcasing the company’s solutions, of which she said “most of, if not all”, are based on Schneider Electric and its customers’ sustainability goals.
“We are really aligned with ESG targets when it comes to diversity; when it comes to inclusion of different people,” she said, adding: “Also, of course, getting greener suppliers, getting greener ourselves. We have our targets and today we have reached maybe 20 of the 25 targets we put on ourselves for 2030.”
Data as integral to decarbonisation
Schneider Electric’s software helps customers conduct their own analysis on Scopes 1, 2, and 3, it was explained, the latter of which was highlighted as the most important, making up around 90 per cent of company carbon emissions.
“At Schneider Electric, we believe that if a company or government entity wants to step into a carbon neutral perspective, it has to be a collaborative and interoperable approach, where I can measure the level of my company, my suppliers, my supply chain, and how they are managing their carbon emissions.”
Here, Essa-Egh stressed the importance of data in providing companies with their starting point and helping pave the road toward greater sustainability.
Essa-Egh noted that this roadmap has applications for already established data centres seeking to become more sustainable and projects that are in the works.
Digitalisation & energy efficiency
“The second step is digitalisation because we believe that digitalisation enables big savings in terms of efficiency,” said Essa-Egh.
“Sixty per cent of the electricity produced is just waste. So, if we want to consume more, and we are consuming more electricity, AI consumes five to 10 times more than a normal data centre, for example. We are all into this; we all want to play, we all want a lot of things, and we need to be more efficient. So this digitalisation is to give you ways to monitor and to really move to the next step, which is decarbonise.”
LEAP 2024 ran from 4-7 March 2024 at the Riyadh Exhibition and Convention Centre in the capital’s Malham district. This year’s edition brought together a record-breaking 215,000-plus attendees from around the world.