The Green Metal
Let us start by highlighting the fact that aluminium is a highly sustainable material in the first place. What sets aluminium apart is its extraordinary efficiency in recycling, using only five percent of the energy required for primary production. Moreover, aluminium can be recycled indefinitely without any compromise on quality, positioning it as an important material in building a circular economy. As a result, the full life cycle emissions of aluminium are roughly 85% lower than those of competing plastics (GRP). Would you like to find out more: read our full article on sustainability here.
The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is an EU regulation that mandates detailed reporting on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) topics for large companies and those listed on EU-regulated markets. It aims to enhance transparency and accountability by standardising sustainability reporting, with mandatory reports starting in 2025.
How we help our customers to be compliant
With mandatory CSRD reporting coming into effect as of 2025, many companies are working hard to make sure they have full visibility on the impact their company has across the value chain. At Euramax, we want to be On your Side in this. Over the past year we have developed a tool that calculates the greenhouse gas emissions of all our products. With this tool, we have now made sure that the greenhouse gas emissions associated with producing an order are disclosed directly on the invoice. This means that, in addition to all the details you would normally expect on an invoice, the greenhouse gas emissions calculated as kilograms of CO2 equivalent of your order will also be mentioned on the invoice. This allows our customers to directly incorporate these figures into their own data and report in a uniform way.
Our figures provide the full scope 1 to 3 emissions from cradle to gate, meaning the entire supply chain all the way to the product being delivered at our customers (see the insert to read more about scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions and how these are defined). Achieving this has been a true team effort across the value chain: we have partnered extensively with our suppliers, as they provide the input on our scope 3 emissions. At Euramax, scope 3 emissions drive 90% or more of the total carbon footprint of our products. This has to do with the emissions required to produce aluminium from mining bauxite all the way to creating aluminium coils. Our own painting operations are in fact very energy efficient and contribute rather little to the overall footprint.
Putting insights into action
While we are proud of the efforts we have made to increase the transparency of our carbon footprint, we also realize that reporting in itself will not eliminate a single kilogram of CO2 emissions. It is only a first step, intended to create data that can be used to drive action towards emissions reduction. There are several ways how Euramax can help you reduce the carbon footprint of your products. A highly effective way to do so is by increasing the recycled content of our products. For example, we offer our proprietary StrongLite alloy with the option of increasing the recycled content to 100%! You can read more about this initiative here.
Other ways in which we can help customers reduce their footprint is by helping them use less, for example by replacing traditional aluminium alloys with StrongLite. This allows a weight saving of up to 20% and, by using less material, automatically reduces the carbon footprint. In fact, Euramax customers are already saving more than 1000 tons of CO2 emissions per year due to their use of StrongLite (equivalent to 50.000 trees absorbing CO2 for a year)! Finally, we can also offer low carbon aluminium, sourced from suppliers that provide certificates to certify the low carbon footprint of their products. Would you like to find out more about how Euramax can help you on your journey to zero carbon? Reach out to one of our experts and we will happily discuss the possibilities!