Hello, everyone. Electrocomponents has been on a two year journey to establish and strengthen our environmental social governance, ESG approach. Today, we are proud to take the next steps in making amazing happen for a better world. Today, we are sharing our 2030 ESG approach called For a Better World, which is our action plan to support a more sustainable and inclusive world. We're sharing this with our investors, our customers and suppliers, and most importantly, all of our people. I believe that having a strong ESG approach is critical to accelerate the delivery of our Destination 2025 strategy and beyond, and for us to become a truly exceptional company. Purpose-driven companies drive long-term value for all of their stakeholders, striving to create benefits for the triple bottom line, people, planet, and profit. I want us to be that type of company.
I want us to be the type of company our customers choose to partner with because of our shared values and our strong ethical and environmental approach, and not just because we have a broad range of products and solutions. A company that is first choice for our suppliers and their new product launches because we have a shared commitment to helping our customers be more sustainable. A company that our shareholders choose to invest in because they can see that we are, as a business, set up for long-term success and driving long-term value for all of our shareholders and stakeholders. Finally, a company that amazing people choose to join because they believe in our purpose and are excited to drive our progress. We are ambitious, and we want to be a leader on ESG in the global industrial sector and beyond.
We believe this is key to driving our Destination 2025 strategy and beyond to the next frontier. I'd like to hand you over to our Vice President of Social Responsibility and Sustainability, Andrea Barrett, to take you through our plan in more detail.
Thank you, Lindsley, for that great introduction. Welcome everyone to the presentation of Electrocomponents' new 2030 environmental, social, and governance action plan, called For a Better World. I'm Andrea Barrett, and I'm Electrocomponents' Vice President of Social Responsibility and Sustainability. I'm delighted to be sharing our plans with you today. Over the next 20 minutes, I'm going to give you an overview of how ESG is embedded across our business, as well as a snapshot of our key progress to date, and of course, the details of our new 2030 ESG plan. I wanted to start by providing some context to the Electrocomponents group, to give you a sense of how ESG is fully embedded into who we are and what we do.
We sit at the heart of the global industrial sector, operating in 32 countries under nine brands with 14 distribution centers and 7,500 people globally. We provide product and service solutions that help our customers design, build, maintain, improve, and protect their equipment and operations. Our purpose is clear. We make amazing happen for a better world, from enabling innovative solutions to keeping businesses, critical industries and communities running. We partner with thousands of suppliers globally to bring our differentiated offer to our customers. We're determined to bring together that global network of suppliers and customers to drive positive change for people and planet. Working towards a more sustainable and inclusive future is not new for us. We've been integrating this into our strategy, propositions, and business as usual approach for a number of years now.
For example, we've been fostering the development of innovative and sustainable solutions via DesignSpark, our online design community with over 1 million members. RS Components are providing automation and control products to help customers optimize their operations, save costs, and reduce the use of natural resources. IESA and Synovos are collating customers' supply chain solutions and delivery routes to be more environmentally efficient. This work is central to our core proposition as an industrial product and service solutions provider and will help to deliver sustainable growth as part of our Destination 2025 strategy. We have established strong governance to lead our ESG agenda. The board has strategic oversight for ESG, led by our CEO, Lindsley Ruth. Last year, we set up a new ESG leadership committee to further accelerate our plans.
The committee is overseen by Lindsley and has a board non-executive director, four members of the senior management team, and myself as members. Debbie Lentz, our President of the Global Supply Chain, is our SMT sponsor for ESG, and she and I work closely with the senior management team to embed our approach across all levels, brands, and geographies. We've also integrated ESG criteria into our strategy and initiative prioritization, as well as the due diligence and integration phases of our mergers and acquisitions approach. A key focus for us right now is applying the TCFD framework to further integrate climate-related risks and opportunities into the governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets of the organization. I'd like to highlight some key successes from our journey so far under our four existing ESG pillars.
In support of the environment, we've cut our Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions by 62% since 2015. We're also refocusing our supply chain to source, store, and deliver products closer to both our customers and our suppliers, as well as using less carbon-intensive forms of transport to reduce emissions. We've expanded our sustainable product and service solutions offering to customers from products such as variable speed drives, high energy efficiency motors, and LED lighting through to service solutions such as condition monitoring and energy saving audits. We've also introduced our first circular product recycling scheme for the Raspberry Pi called OKdo Renew in partnership with Sony Technology Centre. We're increasing our focus on responsible sourcing, introducing a new ethical trading declaration for our suppliers and conducting 89 ethical inspections with our own brand suppliers, RS PRO, over the last two years.
We've also continued to create a safe, inclusive, and dynamic culture which enables our people to thrive, and this is reflected in our improved employee engagement score. Finally, we've launched our first global social partnership with The Washing Machine Project, which we're really proud of. Over the last two years, we have aligned our ESG reporting and disclosures to external best practice standards and frameworks. We're proud that our hard work has been recognized with upper-tier ratings from the key ESG ratings agencies, including MSCI, CDP, Sustainalytics, and EcoVadis. We also know that our strong ESG approach is positively influencing our relationships with our customers and helping to differentiate us in the marketplace. For example, with Cenovus and IESA, our integrated supply chain solutions providers for maintenance, repair, and operations. With IESA, they are helping their clients by implementing energy saving solutions.
This includes a new LED lighting initiative for one of the U.K.'s largest food manufacturers, which will help to save them GBP 200,000 in energy costs and reduce their energy consumption and carbon emissions. While Synovos recently won an important contract with the largest U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturer who mentioned our ESG commitments and technology innovation as differentiating factors. As you can see, we've come a really long way over the past couple of years, and there's lots to be proud of. However, we know we can and need to do more. We're ambitious, and we want to lead the global industrial sector as a truly responsible, sustainable, and inclusive business.
We know this is not only the right thing to do for people and the planet, it is key to supporting our vision to be first choice for our stakeholders and drive the sustainable growth ambitions of our Destination 2025 strategy. Today, we are proud to take the next steps in our ESG journey. For a Better World is our 2030 action plan to support a more sustainable and inclusive future. Following a robust materiality assessment, we have set four ambitious global goals to drive progress around the key ESG issues that matter most to our business. Our goals are advancing sustainability, championing education and innovation, empowering our people, and doing business responsibly. Through this plan, we are supporting six key United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We have set some key actions to drive progress towards our goals.
For advancing sustainability, we are making a commitment to reach net zero emissions across our global operations by 2030 and across the wider value chain by 2050. We have set science-based targets for Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions and committed to the Science Based Targets initiative. For championing education and innovation, our commitment is to build the skills and foster innovation, innovative solutions with 1.5 million young engineers and innovators. To empower our people, we are building a strong leadership team and inclusive culture, and we're working towards 40% of our leaders being women and 25% being ethnically diverse. To ensure we go further to do business responsibly, we will encourage greater action with both our people and suppliers by embedding ESG objectives in employee rewards and our supplier partnerships. We'll also be setting up a new GBP 300 million sustainability-linked loan agreement.
We are confident that our plan will deliver greater long-term value and returns for all our stakeholders. Our action to advance sustainability will ensure we build efficient and resilient operations while also supporting our customers' and suppliers' environmental goals, giving us a competitive advantage with them. By championing education and innovation, we're helping to address the global skills gap and build the next generation of engineers and innovators for our industry. At the same time, we're growing revenue, building our brand, and developing future solutions. Through our commitment to empower our people, we are building a positive culture that will engage and motivate our people, and this will help to drive our transformation and position us to attract and retain top talent.
Finally, in doing business responsibly, we will help to improve supply chain standards for people and the environment while reducing risk and providing customers with ethical and quality assurance. I'd now like to take you through each of our goals in more detail, starting with advancing sustainability. Our focus here is to develop sustainable operations and product and service solutions to reduce environmental impacts and tackle climate change. We are acutely aware of the global threat posed by climate change and the need to take urgent science-based action. We must all play our part, and we're proud to be one of the leading U.K.-based businesses who has set a net zero target for both our direct and indirect operation, supported by a science-based climate action plan.
We've already demonstrated strong progress in our direct operation, having reduced our Scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions from our premises energy use by 62% since 2015, and switching 67% of our group electricity usage to renewables as of last year. Our 2030 action is to be net zero across our direct operation with a science-based target to reduce absolute emissions from our own operations by 75%. We're developing a robust climate transition plan built around existing technologies to deliver this ambition, and this includes procuring 100% renewable electricity by 2025-26, switching to low carbon technologies and improving energy efficiency for our DCs and offices, increasing renewable electricity generation at our sites, such as the solar panels that we added to the Bad Hersfeld expansion last year.
Moving our company cars to full electric with hydrogen an option for our small fleet of larger vehicles. Continuing with the theme of developing more sustainable operations, we are also committed to make our packaging and waste more sustainable. We send 60,000 parcels around the world every day, so we know that this is an area we can make a big impact, and it's something our customers really care about as well. Our 2030 packaging commitment is to reduce intensity by 30% and for 100% of our packaging to be widely reusable, recyclable or compostable and made with 50% recycled content by 2030. We will do this by selecting better packaging materials with more recycled content and reducing, reusing, and recycling more.
We've already introduced automated packaging systems in three of our biggest DCs, which fit boxes to customers' orders, reducing excess packaging and waste. We intend to roll out these to our other distribution centers in the future and increase our use of recycled and reusable packaging. On waste, our 2030 action is to reduce intensity by 50%, recycle more than 95%, and achieve zero waste to landfill in our direct operations. We already recycle 76% of our waste, and we will work with our people, waste providers, suppliers, and other partners to increase this further. Now on to the actions where we must work more closely with our customer and supplier partners to bring our wider value chain to net zero by 2050. As a global distributor, one of the most material areas for our Scope 3 emissions is transport.
Our 2030 action is to reduce transport emissions by 25% per ton of product sold. We are working hard to do this. For example, last year we switched the delivery of our product replenishments to our Asia Pacific DCs from air to sea, reducing the associated emissions on these lanes by almost 60%. We're also selecting carriers investing in green technologies such as our new U.K. carrier, DHL Express, and we're continuing to reduce the miles our products travel by restructuring our supply chain to source, store, and deliver closer to our suppliers and customers. This is made possible by our global network of 14 distribution centers. This action has a triple benefit by reducing costs, cutting carbon, and supporting local economies and jobs.
With over 2,500 suppliers of stock products, one of the biggest contributions we can make to reduce our environmental impacts is to partner with our suppliers to reduce the carbon in our supply chain. Our 2030 action, therefore, is to engage 65% of our suppliers by spend to set science-based targets by 2025. We have already started to engage with our global supplier community on this topic. In July, at our global supplier event, I asked 450 of our global suppliers to join us on this journey and work towards setting science-based carbon reduction goals. One of the most important areas where we can have an impact is by offering our customers sustainable product and service solutions. We already offer solutions that help our customers optimize their operations, improve efficiency, cut costs, and reduce their environmental impacts.
From products such as variable speed drives, high efficiency motors and LED lighting to service solutions such as condition monitoring and energy saving audits. We see huge opportunities to grow our sustainable product and service solutions offering to meet our customers' needs, support the low carbon transition, and serve growing low carbon industries. We will partner with our suppliers to bring new sustainable technologies to market, encourage customers to buy greener products, and develop more circular solutions, such as our Raspberry Pi recycling scheme, introduced in partnership with Sony Technology Centre in July. Our plan also includes expanding RS and RS PRO's sustainable product solutions over the next year. Moving on to our championing education and innovation goal. Here, our focus is to build skills with young engineers and innovators, as well as foster innovative solutions that improve lives.
People and innovation are key to driving the change towards a more sustainable and inclusive future. Engineers, innovators, and technologists are the beating heart of the global industrial sector, making amazing happen every day and helping to address some of the world's greatest challenges. There is a significant shortage of digital and engineering skills globally. If our industry is to continue to thrive in the future, it's essential that we build skills, grow digital capability, and inspire the next generation to join us. Our 2030 action, therefore, is to reach 1 million young people with educational technologies, learning content, and skills development to support future engineers and innovators. Already today, we support over 200 universities with RS educational products and our education program Grass Roots. We will extend this program globally, as well as to continue to build digital skills via our OKdo products and learning content.
Our second key action in this space is to support our social impact partners to develop innovative and sustainable solutions that improve lives. This includes supporting The Washing Machine Project, our first ever global social partner, to help 100,000 people in need over the next 2.5 years. As a business with innovation at its core, we are supporting emerging technologies that can become future solutions for our customers and help to shape a better future. Our 2030 action is to engage with 1.5 million engineers and innovators in creating socially responsible and sustainable solutions. We will do this by engaging our DesignSpark community to encourage participation in activist engineering projects to generate new ideas and solutions. We will also support selective startup businesses who are leading the way in developing new sustainable technologies to bring their solutions to market.
Our support for WITT Energy is a great example. We're providing technical design support and testing products, access to specialist component suppliers, and community engagement with our DesignSpark members to help develop this clean energy solution. Now on to our empowering people goal. Our diverse team of 7,500 people in 32 countries are the lifeblood of our organization. We are committed to creating a safe, inclusive and dynamic culture where our people can thrive and grow. In support of this, we have four key actions. The first is around ensuring we build a truly diverse and inclusive organization. To achieve this, we're working towards 40% of our leaders being women and 25% being ethnically diverse by 2030. By leaders, we mean our senior management team and their direct reports.
This action will help us to build a strong and diverse team right from the top and ensure we reflect the customers, suppliers, and communities that we serve. We've already made some great progress with our diversity and inclusion agenda. We've set up employee resource groups and celebrated cultural campaigns that champion diversity issues in the workplace, and we've rolled out mandatory inclusion training for all of our colleagues globally. Going forward, we are developing new partnerships and initiatives to support diverse talent acquisition, development, and retention at all levels. This will help us to build a more diverse team and a strong leadership pipeline. Our second key action in this space is to aim for zero accidents with our people. The health, safety, and well-being of our people has always been a key priority, and our Target Zero program is truly embedded in the DNA of our organization.
We've already reduced our overall accident rate by 57% since 2017-2018, and we will continue to strive towards zero accidents involving our people as our long-term goal. The engagement and development of our people is critical for employee motivation and satisfaction, as well as to ensure a high performance culture that drives our future success. Our employee engagement score has continued to rise over recent years, and by 2030 we want to be in the top 10% of the most engaged companies in the world. We will continue to invest in our inclusion, well-being, learning and development, and amazing leaders programs to make this happen. We've also given all of our colleagues two paid days a year to volunteer, to share their skills and make a difference in their communities.
We know that volunteering is an important contributor to engagement, team building, and giving our people a sense of purpose. We will encourage at least 50% of our colleagues to have volunteered in their communities by 2030. Now on to our final goal, doing business responsibly. Our commitment here is to take action to ensure the highest ethical and environmental standards throughout our business and global value chain. We work with thousands of supplier partners around the world, and we want to collaborate with them to raise ethical and environmental standards across our global supply chain, from sourcing responsibly to strengthening labor practices and improving environmental standards. This is important for our supplier partners and also our customers who want ethical supply and quality assurance.
We've already increased our activity in this space, becoming signatories to the UN Global Compact, revising our ethical trading declaration for suppliers, and joining forces with Sedex, as well as conducting ethical inspections with our key RS PRO suppliers in Asia. Going forward, we're going to evaluate, monitor, and manage our suppliers against our upweighted standards and agree ESG objectives with our strategic suppliers. Our final commitment is about incentivizing action with our people to deliver our ESG plans. Our plan is to broaden the ESG metrics in employee rewards, starting with carbon across all levels and geographies. We have also amended our GBP 300 million revolving credit facility to link with three of our most material 2030 ESG actions. That brings our ESG presentation to a close.
Thank you so much for listening, and I do hope you found this extra detail helpful, and it's painted a clearer picture of both our progress to date as well as our future ESG plans. This pack will be available in the Investor and ESG sections of our website and will include a full list of our actions in the appendix. We're also publishing our updated ESG pack and data center, so please do look out for these on our website. If you have any questions or would like any further information, please do reach out to our investor relations team. Finally, I'm personally really excited about working with our amazing team to drive this agenda forward for Electrocomponents. I know it's going to deliver a positive impact for all our stakeholders, wider society, and the environment. Many thanks.