Novelis published its Fiscal Year 2014 Sustainability Report, which shows the company is making significant investments and strides to advance the circular economy and increase the sustainability of its business, the aluminum industry and its broader value chain.
“Adding More Aluminum, Creating Value” details Novelis’ efforts to increase its recycling capacity and the recycled content of its products to 80 percent by 2020, which requires less dependence on higher-carbon primary aluminum and more focus on accelerating the use of recycled aluminum.
Novelis’ business model, which is built on closed-loop recycling, comes at a time when aluminum demand is high and the industries that Novelis serves – automotive, beverage can and specialty markets – are increasingly calling for lighter weight, low-carbon materials.
Since 2011, Novelis has invested approximately $2 billion to expand recycling and production, doubling its recycling capacity to 2.1 million metric tons per year. Novelis recently grew its recycling network when it opened the world’s largest aluminum recycling center in Nachterstedt, Germany, which will process up to 400,000 metric tons of aluminum scrap annually.
At the end of Fiscal Year 2014, Novelis achieved 46 percent recycled content of its aluminum inputs, up 16 percentage points from the baseline years of 2007-2009 and is on track to hit 50 percent by the end of the year. This means the company is providing its customers with aluminum sheet with ever-lower embedded carbon which, in turn, reduces its customers’ carbon footprints. A core area of focus of the company’s efforts is the development of highly recyclable alloy compositions.
Novelis works closely with its customers, not simply as a supplier of aluminum flat-rolled products, but also as a technical partner and catalyst for innovation, which was evident in the development of evercan™ for the beverage industry and in new automotive applications that enhance performance while reducing CO2 emissions.
A key component of Novelis’ transformation is an expansion of its ability to serve the automotive industry, the fastest-growing market for its products, as automakers increasingly turn to lightweight vehicles that are more fuel-efficient with fewer emissions. Novelis invested $550 million to triple its automotive sheet capacity to serve growing demand and recently opened China’s first plant dedicated to the production of advanced heat-treated aluminum automotive sheet. Novelis works with its automotive customers to implement closed-loop manufacturing processes, taking back production scrap from automakers then re-melting it, casting it and rolling it again.
Novelis was recognized earlier this year by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which accepted Novelis to join its prestigious Climate Savers Program. Novelis is the first and only metals company to be part of this program, an initiative of WWF to encourage companies to reduce their operational carbon footprint and act as agents of change within their sphere of influence.
Published in the January 2015 Edition of American Recycler News