Driven by a strong vision and answering a growing demand from its customers, Symrise plans to continue reducing its carbon footprint, with the goal of reaching net zero by 2045. To achieve this ambitious goal, the company has launched the Houston program, which is meant to build and implement a uniform approach to calculate the carbon and water footprint (at product and corporate level) throughout the Group and to raise awareness among all employees on the topic of sustainability.

INNOVATION AND DEVELOPMENT, CLIMATE

In the early 1960s, the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, the command center of the US space program, made its home in the city of Houston, Texas, in the United States. Humanity has made great strides with Houston in control, for example the first manned flight to the moon and space shuttle launches into outer space. Houston has become a symbol for well-conceived, tightly organized projects – and that is what Symrise is counting on with its Houston program, which began in 2023. The objective here, however, is not to reach the moon – it’s to find a path to greater sustainability for the entire Group.

“As is the case with space travel, we divided the Houston program into three phases that build upon one another and are designed to make Symrise more sustainable on multiple levels,” says Claire Du Peloux. A native of France, Du Peloux is heading up the project and oversees a team that is spread across functions, regions and organizational units. She has worked in Symrise’s finance and controlling department in Rennes since 2010, in the Taste, Nutrition & Health segment, and joined the sustainability team two years ago. During the Ignition phase, which was finalized in January 2024, the team gathered data and facts to understand the needs and priorities of internal and external stakeholders. Based on this input, they decided on a way forward, and built a concrete roadmap to shape the company’s vision. This first phase entailed, among others things, the definition of global business requirements and the identification of technical IT solutions that could deliver on them. The Lift-off phase will then be dedicated to testing the chosen IT platform throughout spring 2024. Finally, the Orbit phase will support the tool’s rollout within the whole Group by the end of 2025.

“By 2030, we plan to reduce our Scope 3 emissions by 30 %.” 

Laure Vassel,
Business Sustainability Analyst 

Laure Vassel also makes it clear that, although corporate targets are set at a global level and apply all around the globe across all divisions, the challenges to reach them may vary greatly. “The Houston program won’t churn out a one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, it will support the emergence of a new mindset that we strive to introduce and implement as one Symrise team: a common framework and way of working, accounting for all business specificities.” Claire Du Peloux confirms this, as she sees the program as the foundation upon which Symrise’s Low Carbon Transition Plan can come to fruition. “With the Houston program, our aim is to build up cohesion within the Group and become a geared team for greater sustainability around the world.” Sustainability should be the focus of the global value promise, and Symrise should remain a pioneer in the industry and business.

The project team is aware that a deep mindset change is required for this tool to reach its objective. This is why they put together a set of proposals articulated in four pillars: Leadership, EcoSystem, People and Data. Leadership is expected to drive the sustainability strategy toward action mode, transition and innovation. As part of an EcoSystem, the Group shall rally its network and expand partnership culture in its interactions with customers, suppliers and other stakeholders.

As an example falling under the People pillar, which focuses on education and training, every employee could be given the opportunity to take part in a Climate Fresk workshop – based on the card game of the same name, with which an NGO has already explained the fundamentals of climate change to hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. “It’s important to make what is happening right now tangible for people,” says Claire Du Peloux. “Above all, we have to give ourselves the tools to do something about it.” Finally, an example to illustrate the data enhancement vision could be the data management workstream, which would allow harmonization and ensure a satisfactory level of data quality. “We at Symrise have to properly collect, structure and analyze our data in order to be successful,” Claire Du Peloux says.

Du Peloux and Vassel are confident that the Houston program will provide a lot of impetus – even though the processes, standards and regulations can differ greatly between Pet Food and Cosmetic Ingredients, for example, or Fine Fragrance and Food & Beverage. “The learning curve is still steep,” Claire Du Peloux and Laure Vassel say. “With Houston’s first phase, however, we have taken the first step – compiling the different needs and creating an approach that’s suitable for the entire Group.”

The project started with intensive research. “We surveyed stakeholders on all levels – here in the Group, but also our sustainability colleagues at our customers, for example,” Claire Du Peloux explains. “Houston can only be effective if we align our activities with those of our customers and other stakeholders.” In view of the fact that 80 % of Symrise sales are generated with only 25 % of Symrise’s finished products, the team made the choice to build Houston on this basis, focusing their efforts on these 25 % of products for the two years to come, to quickly meet customers’ high expectations. Indeed, more and more customers are inquiring about the carbon footprint of their products. “They want to know what the figures show today, but they also want to see our roadmap for decarbonization,” Claire Du Peloux says. Just like Symrise, all companies of a certain size have written out their climate targets. “Global customers are passing the pressure on to suppliers, expecting us to move on from pledge to plan. This is why we have to measure, track and analyze our footprint from Group view down to product level in order to design and offer to our customers – as much as possible – low-carbon and, in a second step, low-water alternatives. User-friendliness, data accuracy and safety are key criteria for the new tool.”

Laure Vassel was also involved in the 50 interviews with 140 stakeholders. She has worked for the company since the beginning of 2022 and is involved in the Houston program as a business sustainability analyst. “By 2030, we plan to reduce our Scope 3 emissions (e.g., the emissions linked to the cultivation, production and transport of the company’s purchased raw materials) by 30 %,” Laure Vassel says. “To this end, we touched on all parts of the value chain in our interviews, as all business areas have their role to play. From alternative sourcing, innovative recipes, more efficient production processes and clever solutions in logistics, the whole Symrise organization and upstream value chain has a part to play,” she says, listing numerous reduction levers. This collective effort is of paramount importance, as purchased products represent 85 % of our emissions today.

“With the Houston program, our aim is to build up cohesion within the Group and become a geared team for greater sustainability around the world.” 

Claire Du Peloux,
Sustainability Project Manager