SWM's carbon footprint emissions officially certified

Two thirds of SWM’s climate impact happens outside its own gates.

The verification covers Scopes 1 and 2 in full, four of the fifteen Scope 3 categories, and ten sites: Le Mans, Saint-Girons and Quimperlé in France, Ancram and Prosperity in the U.S., Stryków in Poland, Santanesia in Brazil, CTS and CTM in China, and the Luxembourg holding entity.

Scope 2 can be counted in two ways: 49,500 tonnes against the average carbon intensity of the grids SWM draws from, or 51,700 against the contracts and energy attribute certificates it actually holds. Both are disclosed; the total of 361,161 tonnes of CO₂ uses the first.

No law requires it yet. Customers already do.

SWM is not measuring because a regulator told it to. “The carbon footprint is an annual exercise that lets us re-assess how much greenhouse gas SWM’s activities emit,” says Sophie Hervé-Dupenher, who led the exercise for the organization and the ESG team. “It is the excess of CO₂ in the atmosphere that drives climate disruption, and other environmental impacts along with it.”

At Group level there is no specific regulation to date. But our European sites fall under European rules that require us to declare the emissions tied to our energy consumption. The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which takes effect in 2028 on 2027 data, will require Group-level reporting. In the meantime, the carbon footprint has been a customer prerequisite for several years already.

The hardest year yet, on purpose

“The 2025 inventory was the most difficult because we overhauled the methodology in depth,” says Sophie. “That made every step take longer, and it meant far more work on collecting the data and then processing it.”

A carbon footprint is activity data multiplied by emission factors inside a defined boundary. Move any of the three and the total moves. Which is why an auditor examines the method, not just the result.

Finance was pulled in too, which surprises people who assume a carbon footprint is an environmental exercise. Every new investment carries greenhouse gas emissions attached to SWM.  The team consolidated volumes by site and helped define the Group’s calculation perimeter during the audit, including each entity’s role.

Four months under the microscope

The verification ran for close to four months and ended with every material discrepancy closed. “The certification process is identical to an ISO certification audit,” says Sophie. “The auditor tested the accuracy of our data, and the transparency, completeness and consistency of the emissions we were declaring from the raw figure.”

That traceability is what makes verification demanding. Every number has to lead back to the meter reading, invoice or shipping record it came from, across ten sites in six countries.

AFNOR worked under ISO 14064-3:2019, against three reference standards – the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard (2004), the Scope 2 Guidance (2015) and the Scope 3 Standard (2011). Verifications come at two assurance levels, and SWM’s was issued at the higher one.  “This is the first year the carbon footprint has been audited with that degree of rigor,” Sophie says. “The exercise allowed us to greatly improve the reliability and robustness of the calculations. It shows us the direction to reach the level the standards and CSRD require.”

What the certificate is actually worth

The value of the statement is that external certification guarantees the quality of the data SWM declares and confirms that its methodology conforms to the standards.

Customers, rating agencies and regulators increasingly ask the same question in different forms: not what is your footprint, but who checked it. An unverified number invites a questionnaire. A verified one closes the subject and feeds straight into the Scope 3 inventories of SWM’s own customers, who face the same pressure one step down the chain.

The certification renews every year, with each new calculation. This makes the 2026 exercise the next deadline.