Flex - Woman of the Year - Manufacturing
Company: Flex, San Jose, CA
Company Description: Flex is the manufacturing partner of choice that helps a diverse customer base design and build products that improve the world. Through the collective strength of a global workforce across 30 countries and responsible, sustainable operations, Flex delivers technology innovation, supply chain, and manufacturing solutions to diverse industries and end markets.
Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Woman of the Year - Manufacturing
Nomination Title: Barjouth Aguilar
Barjouth Aguilar is the Head of Global Sustainability & Flex Foundation Officer at Flex, a $24B diversified global manufacturer with ~160,000 employees and ~1,000 customers spanning theautomotive, communications, energy, healthcare, and industrial industries. In her role, Barjouth oversees Flex’s sustainability program office and Flex Foundation efforts and leads sustainability reporting and disclosure initiatives.
Joining Flex in 2011, Barjouth led the initial efforts in gathering data related to the company’s sustainability activities and performance. From there, she oversaw the production of Flex’s first-ever sustainability report, aligned to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), published in 2013.
With Flex setting its 20 by 2020 sustainability goals in 2016, Barjouth was instrumental in communicating and aligning these targets with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a company first.
In 2020 and 2021, Barjouth drove the development of Flex’s 2030 sustainability goals, synthesizing industry trends, including investor, customer and societal interests, partnering with area owners, and aligning targets with the company’s refreshed long-term strategy. Climate change, health & safety, and diversity & inclusion along with ethics and governance are focal areas, among others, of the company’s most ambitious goals yet to help advance a positive environmental, social and economic impact for stakeholders.
In 2021, Flex launched its 2030 sustainability goals. The ambitious, in-depth undertaking was built on the foundation of acceptance into the Science Based Targets initiative, something Flex achieved 50% faster than average companies (completed in 9 months vs. the average of two years). Flex also released its 2021 sustainability report, an 89-page document that details every sustainable action undertaken over the past year and third-party verification of the report and the environmental, community and incident rate data, where the company met its previous goals and where work continues. This level of measurement and detail is a testament to the work Barjouth has done to promote transparency and sustainability at Flex.
During her tenure, Flex has earned an Advanced rating from the UN Global Compact, an AA rating from Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI), a Platinum rating (the highest rating) from EcoVadis and an A rating from CDP - water security, a company and industry first, and A- in climate change. Flex also ranks #1 in the electronics manufacturing sub-industry and Top 50 out of ~13,000 companies rated by Sustainalytics. The company claimed the first ESG-linked credit revolver agreement in the tech industry, tying the cost of the facility to key metrics that support Flex's long-term sustainability plan, namely reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and improvements in workplace safety incident rates.
Barjouth created a systematic sustainability approach across Flex that successfully categorized workstreams broken down into manageable goals, each with individual milestones and KPIs. Simplifying the complex allowed Flex to take on a large agenda in an actionable way, providing a framework and focus in each area to make progress.
By orchestrating and collaborating with an integrated, cross-functional team, and incorporating leverage and scale, Barjouth successfully drove the development of Flex’s 2030 sustainability goals in 2021. The undertaking was built on the foundation of acceptance into the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), which guides companies to set greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals required to limit global warming per the Paris Agreement. Flex achieved this 50% faster than average companies (completed in 9 months vs. the average of two years). Flex also released its 2021 sustainability report, detailing every sustainable action undertaken over the past year and third-party verification of the report and environmental, community and incident rate data, where the company met its previous goals and where work continues.
One challenge facing Barjouth was Flex’s acceptance into the SBTi, a process that extends beyond a company’s operational emissions and spans the value chain. Barjouth was tasked with quantifying Scope 3 emissions – encompassing thousands of manufactured products.Another aspect of her biggest undertaking was securing leadership buy-in to partner with customers and suppliers and help them set their respective science-based targets. No other manufacturer hasput this stake in the ground or has SBTi-recognized Scope1, 2, and 3 emissions targets.
Reference any attachments of supporting materials
Flex 2021 Sustainability Report: https://flex.com/-/media/Project/Flex/BrandSite/resource-gallery/PDFs/flex-2021-sustainability-report.pdf?revision=ff316e3b-ae58-4eb5-a5d0-e203978be148
With Barjouth overseeing the sustainability program office and metrics collection and validation process, this report outlines the company’s efforts to achieve its 20 by 2020 goals.
Flex’s New 2030 Sustainability Goals: https://flex.com/resources/2030-sustainability-goals: This in-depth PDF outlines Flex’s new, comprehensive sustainability goals, driven by Barjouth’s efforts to closely partner with various area owners.
Blog profiling Barjouth: https://flex.com/resources/celebrating-hispanic-heritage-month-meet-Flex-sustainability-program-leader: This post brings to life Barjouth’s sustainability efforts in her own words, highlighting her work in developing the company’s 2030 goals and the challenges she had to overcome.
2021 SDG Pioneer for Sustainability Goal-Setting: https://www.globalcompactusa.org/news/congratulations-to-our-2021-sdg-pioneer-winner-and-finalists: Barjouth was a finalist in the 2021 SDG Pioneer for Sustainability Goal-Setting award by the UN Global Compact.