Schneider Electric names new Chief Sustainability Officer

Schneider Electric has appointed Chris Leong as its new Chief Sustainability Officer after a decade as Chief Marketing Officer.

Leong is the first person to hold the Chief Sustainability Officer title at the firm, though others have had a C-level sustainability responsibility before: Emmanuel Lagarrigue was Chief Strategy, Sustainability and Innovation Officer from 2016 to 2021 and Gwenaelle Avice Huet was Chief Strategy and Sustainability Officer from 2022 to 2023.

Based in Hong Kong, Leong has been part of Schneider Electric’s executive committee since 2015 as Chief Marketing Officer, and she will retain her place on the committee as CSO.

“What a way to celebrate my 13-year anniversary at Schneider Electric. It’s an incredible privilege to be given this opportunity to take the amazing foundation built on sustainability for over 20 years at Schneider to the next level, and to learn from the incredibly talented and passionate Schneider Sustainability team and community around the world,” she commented. 

Before joining Schneider Electric, she spent nearly six years at Nokia, first in marketing roles and then as Senior Vice President of its Greater China, Korea and Japan region. Prior to that, she held various senior executive positions in PR group WPP, including Bates Asia, Ogilvy Europe and Grey Global Group Asia. Leong is also a member of Nestlé’s board sustainability committee.

Schneider Electric sustainable business goals

Schneider Electric has an ambition to earn 80% of its revenue from ‘impact’ solutions by 2025. As of Q3 2024, the firm had reached 75% of that goal.

At the same time, the company has a near-term science-based target to cut absolute scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 76% and absolute Scope 3 emissions by 25% by 2030, from a 2021 base year. In its 2023 sustainability report, Schneider said it had cut Scope 1 emissions by 20% and Scope 2 emissions by 42%, bringing the reduction of operational emissions to 31% since 2021.

In a recent interview with CSO Futures, Schneider Electric’s Global Head of Sustainability Sorouch Kheradmand explained how his external-facing role supporting SME and mid-market clients’ energy transition and decarbonisation contributes to these goals. 

“It contributes in several ways, actually, and this is the beauty of the initiative. Of course, it contributes to reducing our Scope 3 downstream. It also touches on our portfolio and how we can make our portfolio more efficient or keep improving it by learning from what we are doing,” he said.