Doing our part to operate sustainably

Our Environmental Impact & Climate Policy

Plexus recognizes the unique opportunity we have to build a better world by mitigating the environmental impact of our global operations in line with recognized climate science and the circular economy. We also recognize our role as a services provider and the opportunity to maximize our mitigation efforts by enhancing collaboration across our value chain.  As such, we strive to:

  • Help our customers deliver products to the market with lower global warming potential and reduced environmental impact by identifying opportunities to design, manufacture and service more sustainable, responsible products
  • Actively lower emissions across our operations through reducing energy consumption, optimizing resource use and efficiencies, updating aged facility infrastructure and deploying new technologies 
  • Produce or procure renewable and clean energy to support our operational energy needs while reducing the consumption of fossil fuels and other forms of non-renewable energy
  • Assess areas to improve our Scope 3 emissions footprint and work with our upstream and downstream partners to promote emissions reduction efforts and activities
  • Divert waste from landfill in favor of beneficial reuse, repurpose or recycling in support of circularity and reducing waste-related environmental impacts, including emissions 
  • Improve processes to reduce water consumption and increase the recycle and reuse of water in all regions, particularly in areas of high or extremely high baseline water stress
  • Limit consumption of resources to avoid biodiversity impacts of raw material extraction
  • Develop interim goals related to material environmental impacts

Plexus is committed to driving transparency of its environmental impact and adherence to the principles outlined in this policy through reporting on our efforts in an annual Sustainability Report, available at https://www.plexus.com/en-us/corporate-social-responsibility.

Energy & Emissions

We are committed to reducing our Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions—with a specific focus on purchased electricity consumed by our manufacturing facilities, which represents the bulk of our Scope 2 emissions. Leveraging electricity sub-metering technology installed across our global facilities, we advanced over 50 energy-related projects in fiscal 2023 to reduce our Scope 2 emissions. This includes energy reduction and optimization projects, such as system and equipment upgrades, equipment optimization projects and LED lighting and sensory system installation.

Beyond energy reduction initiatives, we continued to execute on renewable energy procurement opportunities and expand on-site renewable energy technology deployment. In fiscal 2023, 16.7% of our sites were producing renewable energy on-site, representing a 200% year-over-year increase of on-site renewable energy production.

These projects helped us achieve an 8.4% energy intensity reduction in fiscal 2023 over a fiscal 2022 baseline, exceeding our annual goal to reduce global energy intensity by 5% year-over-year. These efforts resulted in 5,932kg CO2e emissions avoidance in fiscal 2023 and bring our total electricity intensity reduction to 14.9% since formalizing our annual reduction goals in fiscal 2021.  And, to drive and reward achievement of our environmental goals throughout our operations, our annual global BEST (Bringing Employee Success Together) continuous improvement competition recognizes team member innovations that reduce our impact on the environment.

In fiscal 2023, we began scoping and baselining our Scope 3 emissions. Our initial focus is on Category 1 (Purchased Goods and Services), Category 5 (Waste Generated in Operations), Category 6 (Business Travel), Category 7 (Employee Commuting) and Category 9 (Downstream Transportation and Distribution). We continue to assess these initial categories as we establish data control plans related to the capture, aggregation and validation of such data in preparation for internal use to drive improvements and external disclosure

Waste

Over the past two years, we standardized our waste stream inventories across our global facilities, developed better controls to quantify and baseline each waste category, and set a 5% waste-to-landfill intensity reduction goal for fiscal 2024. As required by our Environmental, Health & Safety Management System (EHSMS), each of our sites carefully monitors these waste streams to ensure proper handling and disposal of waste generated by our facilities and processes. Our policies require inspection and qualification of recycling operations, waste management facilities and waste transporters to ensure we are engaging with reputable partners who properly handle our waste in alignment with our processing goals.

To reduce waste generation, promote reuse and recycling and minimize waste to landfill, we iteratively seek to identify areas where we can better embrace circular inputs in our manufacturing processes. For example, we leverage renewable, recycled or highly recyclable inputs into our production processes to eliminate waste and lessen our overall environmental impact, all while maintaining the strictest focus on zero defects. In a number of our manufacturing facilities, we segregate soft plastics waste and convert it to clean-burning energy pellets that are used locally as a means to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. We also deploy solder dross reclamation, systems to reduce volatile organic compounds and chemistry reclamation, and reuse of grey water. Further, we have a strong focus on ensuring hazardous wastes stay out of landfills. Our electronics waste is broken down into its sub-elements, with most of the metals being recovered and put back into the supply chain, and we seek to leverage any waste for meaningful uses such as energy recovery or reuse.

Water

Across our manufacturing sites in fiscal 2023, we installed water sub-metering devices in order to monitor water usage. Leveraging these devices, we are able to identify opportunities to drive reduction efforts, increase awareness, update aged infrastructure and leverage new fixtures and technology to reduce water consumption used within our operations. We seek to find ways to recycle and reuse water in all regions, such as utilizing wastewater to pre-heat the fresh water used in our printed circuit board wash processes. Each of our facilities abides by all local regulations related to maintaining compliance to water treatment standards, including all local water discharge requirements. In fiscal 2023, there were no citations issued related to our water usage.

Our future efforts related to water include integration of water usage as a key performance indicator across our global manufacturing facilities, testing alternative, more sustainable production processes in lieu of water usage for our manufacturing lines, and continuing to identify ways to improve water flows within our facilities. This includes specific projects planned for fiscal 2024 that improve water flows associated with our cooling towers, canteens, restrooms and reverse osmosis systems to help us reduce our water consumption.