Premier Farnell Commits to United Nations Global Compact and Switches to Green Energy

Premier Farnell plc (LSE:PFL), the leading multi-channel, high service distributor supporting millions of engineers and purchasing professionals worldwide announces that it has signed the United Nations Global Compact . By doing so, Premier Farnell has agreed to support the UN Global Compact’s policy and a practical framework for companies that are committed to sustainability and responsible business practices. Premier Farnell’s business operations and strategies are in line with the ten universally accepted principles of the UN Global Compact.

The UN Global Compact provides a strategic platform for participants to advance their commitments to sustainability and corporate citizenship. Structured as a public-private initiative, the Global Compact offers a policy framework for the development, implementation, and disclosure of sustainability principles and practices related to human rights, labour, the environment, and anti-corruption.

Premier Farnell has joined 4,700 other business participants and stakeholders from more than 130 countries. These participants, along with Premier Farnell are making a difference and helping to advance sustainable business models and markets in order to contribute to the initiative's overarching objective of helping to build a more sustainable and inclusive global economy. Premier Farnell’s commitment to the environment is exemplified by its Business in the Community gold status, active and measurable carbon reduction programme, and innovative packaging solutions to support our customers’ effort to reduce their impact on the environment.

“The UN Global Compact is clearly in line with our overall strategy to build a sustainable future as good corporate citizens,” said Steven Webb, Company Secretary and General Counsel of Premier Farnell. “We have already reduced our carbon foot by 20% since 2006 and, as another major step in reducing our environmental impact, we have now switched all of our major U.K. operations to green energy tariffs, meaning that our electricity for these facilities will come from a mixture of renewable sources as we strive to minimise our carbon footprint.”

About Premier Farnell

Premier Farnell plc (LSE:PFL) is a leading high service, multi-channel distributor of electronic, and industrial products and specialist services throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific. It goes to market with a differentiated value proposition, world-class marketing, a stocked range of 480,000+ products, and access to 4,000,000 more items from 3,500 top manufacturers. The company has group sales of £823.1m and over 4,100 employees globally.

While global in scope, Premier Farnell recognizes the individual needs of each market and has continued to internationalize its model accordingly, trading locally under different brand names. Its primary electronics businesses trade as Farnell in the UK, India, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Newark in the US, Canada and Mexico, and Premier Electronics in China and Hong Kong. In Singapore, Malaysia, and Brazil the operation is known as Farnell Newark.

For more information visit the website at www.PremierFarnell.com.