Reducing our impact, one step at a time

April 22 is Earth Day, an important moment to reflect on how we care for the planet and the impact of our choices, both as individuals and as organizations. To mark the occasion, we sat down with Joris Sepelie, our APAC expansion lead in Australia and global CSR strategy lead, to talk about our climate commitments, how we’re tracking against them, and where we’re heading next.

Back in 2024, Bluecrux committed to working with “Science Based Targets” around climate action. Can you remind us what those targets are, and why we chose to set them? 

It’s important to start by saying that Bluecrux recognizes the impact of human-driven climate change. As such, we also believe that, as an organization with hundreds of employees and multiple offices around the world, we have a responsibility to minimize our own contributions to the ongoing climate crisis. We have actually already been calculating our carbon footprint since as far back as 2018. In recent years, however, we’ve noticed that our customers have started asking about our specific targets, so it felt like the time was right to take the next step and set out a serious commitment. As a result, we decided to sign-up to goals defined as Science Based Targets (SBTs). 

SBTs are tangible but ambitious and attainable targets that are aligned with the latest climate science and set at a corporate level to limit climate change by reducing an organization’s direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Emissions targets are considered “science-based” when they are in-line with the scientific consensus for what is required to meet the goals of the 2016 Paris Agreement. Specifically, that means aiming to limit the net rise in global temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, while actively pursuing efforts to limit the warming to 1.5°C. 

In line with the SBTi (Science Based Target initiative), we have set near-term targets to reduce our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 42% by 2030 (compared to a 2023 base year), and to measure and reduce our Scope 3 emissions. In 2025, we have further committed to reduce our Scope 3 emissions by 10% by 2030 (compared to a 2024 base year). 

So, we’ve set those targets but how are we performing so far? Have there been any concrete internal steps or initiatives taken to start reducing our emissions? 

Naturally, as a company focused on providing services and technology, our baseline emissions are already relatively low when compared with many other business models. As a result, a limited number of levers are available to significantly reduce our emissions further. Nevertheless, the biggest initiative we have taken so far is to start electrifying our car fleet. This step alone has already reduced our Scope 1 emissions by more than 10%, and we will continue to phase-out our existing fossil fuel-powered cars with EVs over the coming years. 

Additionally, we have committed to switching to 100% renewable energy for all our offices globally by 2030 – ideally sooner – to deliver on our Scope 2 emissions reduction target. Both initiatives together should enable us to significantly surpass our SBTs. 

As Bluecrux expands globally, like into APAC, how do you see our sustainability strategy evolving? Are there regional differences in how we approach this? 

First of all, for Bluecrux, sustainability is much more than just our carbon footprint; it also includes topics related to sustainable procurement, waste management, labor and human rights, and diversity, equity and inclusion. 

We are fortunate to be headquartered in the EU, which has probably the most advanced and ambitious legislation around such values anywhere globally. As a result, these priorities are also much more culturally-embedded here than in some other parts of the world. As we continue to grow and expand, I believe it is important for us remain ambitious on a global scale. 

While it’s important to acknowledge that not every country or region into which we expand will have the same standards or priorities, I do believe that this shouldn’t stop us from setting a worldwide example based on the values that we aspire to. Of course, there will always be local sensitivities that we cannot ignore, as well as new, regional insights that we should incorporate into our sustainability strategy. That could mean differentiating our policies locally or educating our own community globally. 

Where do you see the biggest sustainability challenges for supply chains today and where can innovation partners like Bluecrux really make a difference? 

At an operational level, everything we do at Bluecrux is focused on helping our customers to transform their existing supply chains into the value chains of tomorrow. A significant aspect of value chain thinking involves considerations around sustainability and there is currently a lot of interest in supply chain carbon footprinting and emissions reduction. 

In that context, I believe that the biggest challenge today is in determining how to measure emissions, especially when that extends beyond an organization’s own operations (such as transport and logistics partners). Choosing which emissions standards to use while continuing to be forward-looking is also a significant challenge.  

In terms of the services we offer, our Axon™ team has developed a great solution that helps customers to calculate their overall supply chain emissions and see the impact transport decisions can make on overall emissions evolution. Meanwhile, both Axon and Binocs™ are SaaS solutions hosted in Microsoft Azure and subscribed to Microsoft’s environmental commitments. Studies show that solutions hosted on Azure are 93% more energy efficient and up to 98% more carbon efficient than traditional on-premises setups. By supporting the acceleration of fully-sustainable cloud technologies, we are able to relieve our customers of the operational responsibility for carbon-tracking the services they use. 

Beyond carbon footprinting, I truly believe that our supply chain expertise across operations and planning allows us to connect the dots for our customers. Often, that can mean directly identifying opportunities or benefits related to sustainability, of which the customer themselves might otherwise be unaware due to the sheer size of their organization. This could be something simple like including water or electricity consumption as a KPI when assessing plant operation efficiency or something bigger like including carbon emissions as a parameter to drive the planning decisions in a supply chain planning solution. 

Where do you hope we’ll be in, say, 5 or 10 years from now? 

That is an interesting question. Looking at Bluecrux, we have set carbon footprint and renewable energy targets for 2030, as already mentioned. On top of that, we are also committed to becoming fully net-zero by 2030, and have set ourselves procurement targets for low carbon and carbon neutral products or suppliers, thereby extending our ambition to our own (limited) supply chain. 

However, as also mentioned before, sustainability (or Corporate Social Responsibility, as we prefer to call it) has a much wider scope for us. So, looking at the other areas of CSR, I believe our company DNA already incorporates high standards when it comes to labor conditions, human rights, and diversity, equity and inclusion. Despite placing such values at the heart of our corporate identity, as the company continues to grow, it will become increasingly important to formalize those values as explicit standards. That will mean also ensuring we uphold those standards in our global operations and demand the same from our entire value chain. 

With our commitment to SBTi, our participation in CDP reporting, and our yearly Ecovadis assessment, we are now engaged in 3 fundamental initiatives and reporting tools when it comes to CSR. If I think 5 years ahead, I’m excited to think about which other global initiatives we could join that would further challenge our ambitions, while also allowing us to set an example. 

Finally, looking beyond Bluecrux, I’m very excited to see which new partnerships we will establish with other stakeholders for whom sustainability is a common ambition and driver, whether that’s suppliers, customers or business partners. Many of our customers are already setting ambitious targets for themselves and their own supply chains and I am very excited about the role we can play in delivering on those targets with them.