Philips understands that sustainable development is one of the most challenging issues facing the world. Therefore, Philips is engaging suppliers to create awareness of sustainability topics and encourage them to increase environmental performance.

“Philips believes the transition from a linear to a circular economy is an essential boundary condition to create a sustainable world. It is a driver of innovation in the areas of materials, components, product re-use, and not unimportantly logistics. Therefore, continued focus on reducing our environmental impact from logistics is required.” says Arjan de Jongste, Senior Vice President Procurement Indirect Materials & Services at Royal Philips.

With this in mind, and Philips’ mission to create a more sustainable world through innovation, the two parties have signed a five-year strategic Carbon Pact. The agreement integrates both companies’ longstanding commitments to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions within their value chain by 2020. The CO2 reductions are to be achieved over a 5-year time frame between 2016 and 2020 and will focus closely on reducing emissions through fuel efficiency

A milestone in the business partnership

“For Maersk Line the partnership is a milestone in our relationship with Philips. We are happy to contribute to Philips’ ambitious climate change agenda, as well as to take our business relationship further through bringing sustainability elements into purchasing decisions. With this we demonstrate that responsible business is good business” says Chief Executive, North Asia Region of Maersk Line, Robbert Jan van Trooijen.

Head of Forwarding & Distribution at Philips, Frank Dingen, comments “Over the past years we’ve seen Maersk Line outperform the industry average when it comes to CO2 emissions. For 2015 results are looking promising as well. We want to lock in similar achievements for the years to come. Via the Carbon Pact we expect Maersk Line to deliver tangible carbon savings and we look forward to working together on further increasing transport efficiency and transparency of environmental impacts.”

The partnership does not stop here as both companies have made a commitment to create transparency on the environmental impact of ocean transportation and to work towards integrating CO2 and other sustainability indicators into the commercial supplier relationship.