May 26, 2021

Logitech Participates in LEAD on Climate 2021

This week, Prakash Arunkundrum, Logitech’s Head of Operations and Sustainability, and I joined CEOs and representatives from more than 80 companies to call for bold and urgent action on the climate crisis. 

We decided to take part in Ceres’ U.S. LEAD on Climate event because Logitech is 100% committed to being a force for driving positive change, but that change isn’t happening fast enough – we need to do more, now to address the climate crisis impacting the future of our planet. If we had more time, 50 or 100 years, I would hope that we could solve this problem through education and corrective action. But the stark reality is that we are not headed in that direction and we don’t have time for that to naturally play out. We need to speak up and speak out now, and unequivocally, for bold climate solutions everywhere we operate globally.

We enter this conversation with leaders and lawmakers humbly since we know many other companies have already started down this path of pairing policy engagement with bold internal sustainability commitments. It was an honor to join them this week. We also enter this conversation having taken significant steps internally to reduce our own carbon footprint. 

• With more than a decade of focused sustainability efforts, it was only in 2019 that we began speaking up publicly. At that time, we pledged to achieve net-zero carbon in line with the Paris accord to support a 1.5C world. Last year, we removed 64,000 tonnes, which’s 6% of our 2019 carbon footprint. We also pledged to achieve 100% renewable electricity throughout our operations by 2030. Today, we are already at 88% in our direct scope and we are strongly advocating our direct partners to use renewable electricity. 
• One of the largest impacts we can make is to design our products for sustainability. Grounded on a science-based approach in line with SBTi, we are reducing carbon through systematic product redesign and circularity in our operations. We have several other efforts to equip our products to use lower power and more greener technologies. Further, what we are unable to reduce immediately we have invested in forests and certified offsets to neutralize our carbon, specifically our gaming portfolio and our largest factory are carbon neutral since 2019.  
• Perhaps, our biggest and most exciting step so far is carbon transparency through carbon labeling. Like calories on foods, we are voluntarily disclosing product carbon footprint information. We are the first consumer electronics company to commit to labeling the carbon on all products, across all our brands. We believe that lifecycle carbon labeling can create an industry shift in transparency and shed a much-needed light on carbon across the value chain. We know we cannot do this alone and therefore we are also giving away our know-how and methodology for carbon labeling to anyone also interested in carbon transparency. This DEKRA certified methodology is not only available to others, but it informs our design decisions in order to hold ourselves accountable and ultimately empowers customers to make informed purchasing decisions.  

Solving the climate crisis is going to take more than a few companies or countries taking action but will take everyone coming together. I urge other leaders to speak up and please join me and others at Ceres/BICEP in seeking bold climate policy and action quickly. And as consumers, we also have incredible power to influence the direction of companies through our decision to purchase products that are made sustainably as well as the direction of your local governments through education and activism. Together we can do this.

This column originally appeared as a blog on the Ceres website.

  As president and chief executive officer of Logitech, Bracken P. Darrell is responsible for Logitech’s strategy for growth and profitability, for the vision for the brand as well as for the company’s operations. Mr. Darrell joined Logitech as president in April 2012, and assumed the role of chief executive officer in January 2013. Mr. Darrell brings to Logitech more than twenty years of experience in business management and brand management in successful global consumer companies, including Whirlpool, Procter & Gamble and General Electric. His broad executive management experience has spanned manufacturing, supply chain, product innovation, consumer services and marketing – targeting customers in mature and emerging markets. Bracken Darrell holds an MBA degree from Harvard Business School and a BA degree in English from Hendrix College in Arkansas.

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