Aluminium and its environmental impact
Limiting the environmental impact of your main materials is a core responsibility of any company. That is why Reynaers Aluminium focuses on sustainability, during the production process as well as during the life cycle of our aluminium solutions.
Reducing our environmental impacts starts at the material level. To obtain pure aluminium, aluminium oxide is melted during an electrolytic process - the Hall-Héroult process. By using green energy from hydropower plants, we reduce our carbon footprint to four kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilogram of aluminium. That is about half of the European average! The result is what we call low-carbon primary aluminium.
Next to an energy-efficient production process, aluminium products are known for their long lifecycle and unlimited recyclability. In fact, aluminium can be repurposed an infinite amount of times without loss of quality. It makes the need for electricity during the initial production process a one-off investment.
Our approach to low-carbon sourcing
Today, already 77% of our aluminium portfolio is low-carbon, which is in line with the EU Green Deal. At Reynaers Aluminium, the average carbon footprint of our aluminium profiles in 2024 is 4.13 kg CO2e/kg aluminium (billet + extrusion), a -20% difference to our base year 2019. We plan to further reduce it to 2.81 by 2030 (-46% vs. 2019), which is also in line with the EU Green Deal.
How will we achieve this? Over the past years, as part of a comprehensive purchasing strategy, we have engaged with the right suppliers to decarbonize our aluminium sourcing by 2030. And we have already made significant progress. With a strong commitment and a thorough decade-long industrial plan, we are confident the upcoming years will further confirm the trend. All to make your future and ours a little bit brighter, one step at a time.
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