By Philippe Delpech, Sonepar President
Earlier this year I attended International Energy Agency (IEA) conference, which focused on the need for urgent long-term action on energy efficiency. As the CEO of a major international group, it is my job to understand and integrate macrotrends that affect our sector. Despite the current economic turbulence and geopolitical risks climate change remains by far the biggest challenge humanity faces.
Climate change’s effects are no longer warnings generated by future-facing models that are questioned by climate skeptics: they are increasingly concrete. To take a salutary global example, only ten years ago, scientists were predicting ice-free Arctic summers by the end of the century, but ice is disappearing at such a rate that this prediction has been shortened to less than 20 years.
I am watching this slow-motion catastrophe with a mixture of hope, frustration, and impatience.
My hope comes from our unique position and leverage in our sector. With 44 000 associates in 40 countries, Sonepar is very much a global player in electrification, the world's leading electrical distributor in the buildings sector which is the main CO2 emissions vertical.
In that sector, the sad news is that emissions from buildings – whether from heating, air conditioning, or other needs for power – are an incredibly significant contributor to global warming. The IEA calculates that they represent a staggering 39% of the world’s emissions (IEA, 2019). The good news is that this same statistic means that solid action in the buildings sector can have a huge effect on carbon pollution.
It is one thing for a government to say that the aim is to be carbon neutral by 2050, but this must be matched by a clear trajectory to get there and a framework that enables it.
Sonepar is the leader in its market and is also leading the way in the supply of greener solutions. We are developing our Green Offer, which provides simple, accurate, and like-for-like comparisons of CO2 emissions across the whole life cycle of products. It rates life cycle emissions as A, B, or C, enabling customers to make a choice based on carbon as well as product functionality and helping our manufacturers to improve their eco-design.
In parallel, we are pursuing a range of initiatives, from increasing product circularity or extending products life by starting pilots with our partners on reusing, repairing, refurbishing, remanufacturing returned products by our customers as well as increasing the proportion of recycling. We are also moving toward 100% recycled packaging and setting renewable energies in our buildings and replacing our fleet with low carbon vehicles.
I am proud of all these initiatives, but it is not enough. What is needed is major action to tackle building emissions in areas like heating, cooling, and insulation – as well as power generation itself. In some ways, the buildings sector is fortunate; it is in a far better position than other sectors like aviation for example, where emission reductions such as using alternative fuels or optimizing flight routes are much harder to achieve.
I do not think the challenges can be met without determined and long-term action from government as well as industry.
But it is here that my frustration comes in. Technologies that can help solve the problem of buildings emissions exist today and have done for some time. Solar panels, insulation, and heat pumps are just three examples.
There are a range of reasons for the failure to adopt these solutions. The complications around retrofitting buildings, the large low-quality buildings in emerging markets, or the need for builders to change their first cost mindset must all be addressed. But what is increasingly clear to me is that the market cannot address these issues in the timescale needed, especially given that most of the buildings constructed today will still be in use in 2050.
I do not think the challenges can be met without determined and long-term action from government as well as industry. Governments have huge leverage and a key role to play. They can subsidize construction and retrofit at large scale and regulate in a way that forces action. It is one thing for a government to say that the aim is to be carbon neutral by 2050, but this must be matched by a clear trajectory to get there and a framework that enables it.
So why is progress so slow? The answer is short-termism. My view is that there are four factors at play here:
First, because climate change is gradual and its worst effects will appear in the future, it is easy for policymakers to see it as less urgent than more immediate concerns like inflation, wages or security. We all know that people, news media, civil society, and politicians tend to focus on day-to-day issues.
Second, politicians necessarily have a short-term perspective. They are usually elected for a four- or five-year term and, what is more, they have often learned that they can be re-elected despite previous inaction on climate change. The other side of this coin is that policymakers who are bold enough to put in place the painful measures demanded by the climate crisis may find themselves rejected at the next election and their measures watered down or reversed.
Third, the people who will suffer climate change’s worst effects simply cannot hold today’s politicians accountable. Those who might live to see the century’s end, and climate change’s worst effects, do not yet have the right to vote.
Fourth, climate injustice, countries most severely affected by climate changes are the lowest emitters.
One way through this is to adopt long-term political goals. The 195 countries who signed the Paris Agreement to limit the average temperature to below two degrees above pre-industrial levels provide an example of this kind of action. Such approaches can work. I think of my home country, France, and its response to the 1970s Oil Shock. Here, an ambitious program to construct nuclear reactors was successful across the tenure of two widely differing political parties and three presidents. The problem though is that these long-term goals remain only statements of political intent. As I look across the countries where we operate, I see other measures being assessed too. For example, the creation of specialist advisory bodies or government agencies, which can provide continuity across political life cycles. These are often accompanied by civil society counterparts, such as France’s citizen’s council on climate change. Legislation is also an option, such as the UK’s Climate Act, which sets out five-year carbon budgets on the trajectory towards net zero. However, even legislation often proves not to be ultimately binding.
There is also hope. If we draw a parallel, in the mid-1970s, scientists warned that synthetic chemicals in everyday products like aerosols, foams, refrigerators and air-conditioners were harming the ozone layer, which is now recovering after government set impactful regulations.
The challenge at stake is however more profound as it relates to the energy which fuels our economies. While I cannot mandate the kind of long-term thinking we so urgently need, I can use my influence, as the head of Sonepar, to call for a clear trajectory to move buildings toward global carbon neutrality, and evidence of the political will to stick to the pathway.