Roquette, a major supplier of plant-based ingredients, excipients and pharmaceutical solutions, has called on AXA Climate, AXA’s subsidiary dedicated to climate adaptation, to analyse the medium- and long-term climate challenges facing its value chain, and build an adaptation plan. Roquette is positioned as one of the pioneers in this fast-changing sector.
With annual revenues of around 4.5 billion euros in 2024, the Roquette group is present in nearly 150 countries. Roquette processes raw materials of plant origin to develop high-performance ingredients and solutions used in everyday foods, oral medications, biopharmaceuticals and biosourced products. Aware of the new vulnerabilities linked to climate instability, Roquette has entrusted AXA Climate with the assessment of its production and storage sites, logistics routes and critical raw materials against climate risks.
A diagnosis in line with new CSRD regulatory requirements
In line with the regulatory analysis framework defined by the European CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive), AXA Climate carried out an in-depth diagnosis of the climate risks weighing on Roquette’s operational resilience. This assessment drew on a wide range of in-house expertise – climatologist, agronomist, hydrologist, data analyst and sector experts – on the basis of two IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) climate scenarios, projecting global warming of 2.7°C and 4.4°C respectively by 2100.
Climate challenges: identifying risks for better adaptation
The main challenges identified include the intensification of droughts and heat waves in certain key supply zones, and the worsening of extreme weather phenomena – floods, storms, etc. – likely to affect the group’s logistics and industrial infrastructures in the long term.
With these findings in mind, AXA Climate and Roquette have drawn up a concrete adaptation plan that can be implemented in the mid-to-long term. This plan includes, among other things, optimised management of water resources to strengthen the industrial base in the face of the potential risk of drought, securing supplies of strategic raw materials and reducing critical logistical dependencies, as well as an adapted climate governance structure to support strategic decisions.
“This close collaboration with Roquette’s teams illustrates a shared conviction: adaptation to climate change is built on the ground, as close as possible to operational realities,” explains Eva Rivière, Agri-Transition Consultant at AXA Climate. “For AXA Climate, this project was an opportunity to prove the solidity of its model and its ability to provide advice to companies that have become aware of the need to adapt to global warming, in a sector that is heavily impacted.”
“By combining AXA Climate’s expertise with our teams’ knowledge of the field, we were able to draw up a precise map of our medium- and long-term operational risks. This collaboration now enables us to anticipate the various possible scenarios more accurately, and to better prepare our response to climatic events”, explains Jean-François Herlem, Climate Transition Leader, Roquette.
