Annual and Sustainability Report 2024
“Meeting needs beyond tomorrow”
2024 was another good year for Electrolux Professional Group. We are delivering on our strategy, and step-by-step building a stronger company to be able to meet the needs beyond tomorrow. We grew the company through acquisitions, and profit, profitability, and cash flow improved, despite a continued challenging macroeconomic and geopolitical situation. In addition, we have strengthened our position as the sustainability leader in our industry, confirmed by our ranking among the top 500 companies in the world for Sustainability growth.
Despite a challenging macroeconomic situation, the underlying long-term factors influencing growth in our industry are robust and stable, creating the conditions for continued global market growth. We offer solutions that are at the forefront of our industry in innovation, sustainability, and digitalization, and we have one of the largest global brands in the industry.
Growth through innovation and sustainability
We provide our customers with advice and in-sights on how to be more efficient and productive, enabling them to reduce costs whilst reducing their impact on the climate. Therefore, innovation related to improved sustainability performance and connectivity play a key role in our strategy. This is manifested by us investing 5% of sales in R&D. Let me give some examples;
- During 2024 we launched our new undercounter dishwasher, NeoBlue Touch, which is a commitment to performance, efficiency, and sustainability. It will drive volume growth and sales of consumables. The enhanced performance in respect of energy, water, and detergents will sup-port our customers to become more sustainable.
- The new I-PRO2 Autofill Lid is our new Beverage dispenser that automatically doses the ratio of water and syrup into the IPRO’s bowls. It refills the bowls as the probe detects decreasing levels which makes the product more effective, easier to handle, and less labor intensive.
- The next generation high-productivity heat pump dryer (TD6-11) was launched in 2024. It uses less energy, enabling to a more sustainable and profitable laundry business.
- To meet the needs of the Chinese market we have localized part of our Modular cooking XP range to our factory in Shanghai. In addition, our new compact flight type dishwasher that was launched in China this year uses less water and energy.
Expand in high-margin products, segments, and geographies
The margin for Laundry, as well as for Food & Beverage in Europe, clearly improved during the year. Our margin improvement journey has also been supported by our focus on high-margin products and segments in parallel to phasing-out low margin categories in coffee and refrigeration.
We have also made two important acquisitions that will contribute to our margin improvement, TOSEI – a leading company in Laundry and vacuum packing machines in Japan and Adventys – a specialist in induction technology. TOSEI’s margin currently is in line with the 2024 Group margin but after synergies should be well in line with the Group EBITA target of 15%. Adventys is already accretive to the margin target. Importantly, in-duction cooking uses less energy which makes it the strategic technology choice for the future of sustainable cooking.
Boost Customer care
Customer care is crucial to our customer’s uptime, which requires us to have a reliable and geographically widespread Customer Care service. It is also one of the most profitable parts of our business. I am therefore happy to report that Customer Care grew more than product sales during the year, improving our margin.
Invest in digitalization and AI
Digitalization, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and connected products continue to be key enablers for creating customer value. Hence, we have further increased investments in this area. It is also a way of future proofing our company, enabling more effective use of products, higher uptime for our customers, and better ease-of-use and interaction.
Based on the company needs and current trends, we are pursuing several AI initiatives. These are designed to enhance our operations and services, keeping us at the forefront of technological advancements.
We have continued to roll out and improve our Digital Customer Platform that provides our partners with a seamless, self-service, online experience. With our connectivity offer, customers can seamlessly monitor and control their connected products. Through this deeper insight into the use of their equipment, they can reduce the usage of energy, water, and detergent.
Sustainability leader – meeting needs beyond tomorrow Electrolux Professional Group is the sustainability leader in our industry. Our sustainability targets center on climate, health & safety, and diversity. As a signatory of the UN Global Compact and with our sustainability work based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, we fully recognize the importance of taking action to mitigate climate change and support the ambitions of the Paris Agreement.
Our sustainability leadership has been recognized this year. We were: ranked among the top 500 companies in the world for sustainable growth by TIME and Statista; ranked highest among the listed companies in our industry on the climate change list in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP); received the best (ESG) risk rating by Sustainalytics; scored AA on the MSCI ESG list; and we have retained our Silver Sustainability Rating from EcoVadis.
All these achievements solidify our reputation as a leader in our industry, dedicated to creating long-term, sustainable value for our customers, partners, and society at a large.
Our overarching, and ambitious, target is to become climate neutral in our own operations by 2030. We have committed to science-based targets to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 70% by 2030, and to reduce indirect use Scope 3 emissions of products sold by 27.5% by 2030. During 2024 we reduced our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 61% compared to 2019 (excluding companies acquired in 2024), and we reduced Scope 3 emissions by 35%. This demonstrates that we are on the right path. In addition, since our main climate impact – approximately 95% – occurs during the product-use phase, we continue to focus on developing energy-efficient products.
Building a stronger company step-by-step
Since the listing of Electrolux Professional Group as a stand-alone company five years ago, we have proven that we are able to handle a pandemic as well as geopolitical and macro-economic challenges. At the same time, we have significantly transformed the Group. We have increased the pace of innovation and customer value generation. We are a stronger and more geographically balanced company with strong regional manufacturing facilities.
Laundry, our most profitable segment has grown significantly, and Food & Beverage is steadily improving. Consequently, our ability to mitigate possible external challenges, such as international trade wars, is much better today than before.
During recent years we have improved the performance of the Group every year. This has been possible thanks to strong brands, market positions, solid financials, and not least, competent and committed employees. Our ambition is to continue to improve our performance step-by step while transforming the company to meet demands beyond tomorrow.
Alberto Zanata, President and CEO