Worldline, a global leader in payments services, announces it has been awarded the Platinum recognition for the second year in a row, as part of its sixth ESG^[1] performance assessment by EcoVadis. This recognition strengthens Worldline’s position among the top 1% of the most sustainable companies on the four key criteria evaluated by EcoVadis: Environment, Labor and Human Rights, Ethics and Sustainable Procurement.

The overall score of 86/100, far higher than the 41.4/100 average for large companies assessed by EcoVadis, reflects Worldline’s consistent commitment to sustainability through its ambitious CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) approach supported by its TRUST 2025 transformation programme. With a strong confirmed performance on all the four ESG assessed dimensions, Worldline demonstrates its ability to implement the best practices and efficient action plans to reach its sustainability ambitions.

In relation to the environment, Worldline achieved an excellent score of 90/100, highlighting its robust momentum to improve its contribution to the carbon neutrality of the payment ecosystem. As part of its environmental strategy, Worldline has set itself ambitious climate change objectives to be achieved by 2025.

These objectives are aligned with a +1.5°C global warming limitation trajectory (for scope 1 & 2) and have been validated by the SBTi (Science Based Targets initiative) as following:

• Reducing its absolute scopes 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 25% by 2025 compared to the base year 2019;
• Reducing absolute scope 3 GHG emissions from purchased goods and services and the use of sold products by 7.4% within the same timeframe.

To achieve its carbon reduction commitments, Worldline has launched a wide-ranging improvement action plan to optimise the energy efficiency of its operations through ISO 14 001 certification of its sites and data centres, the use of renewable energy and the eco-design of its payment terminals. Worldline has also committed to offset all its residual emissions. As a result, Worldline  has already reduced its global carbon footprint by 59% in intensity per euro revenue on its scopes 1, 2 and 3a in five years and in 2021 the Group has been included in the prestigious CDP Europe A List, confirming its leadership and active role in the fight against climate change.

The numerous actions led by Worldline in the Labor and Human Rights area have also enabled Worldline to retain a great score of 80/100 on the social dimension. As part of its Responsible Employer strategy, Worldline has stepped-up its efforts to nurture its talented people by offering high level training and rewarding career opportunities while fostering their well-being and engagement through flexibility and a healthy working environment. In parallel, Worldline has also strengthened its actions to improve social dialogue, to favour diversity and inclusion throughout its organisation and to build a common and strong culture to align the team around the company’s purpose. As a result, Worldline has been recognised recently as Europe Top Employer in 9 countries and the global employee satisfaction rating (as measured by the Trust Index of the Great Place to Work institute) has improved by 15 points in five years, reaching 65% in 2020.

Regarding the Ethics (90/100) and Sustainable Procurement (70/100) dimensions, Worldline pursues its progress to positively influence its ecosystem by embedding and promoting the best CSR standards in order to ensure the highest level of trust and integrity throughout its value chain. In 2021, Worldline strengthened its Sustainable procurement approach by ensuring a systematic due diligence process, promoting sustainable procurement practices internally and continuously improving its suppliers’ CSR performance. In 2020, 100% of Worldline suppliers assessed by EcoVadis with a score below 40/100 had an action plan in place to improve their CSR performance. In addition, Worldline has implemented a comprehensive internal awareness programme on data protection, security, code of ethics and anti-corruption to guarantee the most ethical behaviors by its employees in its business activities. In 2020, 96% of employees were trained on the Code of Ethics, 89% on anti-corruption and 91% on Data Protection.

Sébastien Mandron, Worldline CSR Officer, said: “I am very proud that Worldline has once again been awarded the Platinum Medal, the highest recognition level of EcoVadis, and has maintained its leading position among the top 1% of the most sustainable companies assessed. In an even more demanding context for companies to disclose their extra-financial information with the highest level of accuracy, transparency and exhaustiveness, this new distinction testifies to our intensive efforts to keep our CSR leadership as a key differentiator in our industry. For the future, we intend to accelerate our sustainability momentum through the strong mobilisation of all our teams around the new ambitions of our TRUST 2025 programme.”