CERATIZIT presents ambitious sustainability strategy

‘CO2 neutral’ by 2025, ‘net zero’ by 2040

CERATIZIT has presented its ambitious sustainability strategy during AMB 2022 in Stuttgart. The aim of this strategy is to make the company the leader in sustainability for the hard metal and cutting tool industry by 2025.

Announcing these new and ambitious sustainability goals that will affect and change the entire supply chain, Executive Board Member Thierry Wolter said: “Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time and requires the industry to rethink in many areas as well,” Ceratizit has set itself ambitious targets for its own products and services in order to enable customers to also produce more sustainably. “Our vision is to be the leader in sustainability in the hard metal and cutting tool industry by 2025.”
In order to be truly sustainable, CERATIZIT will look at the entire value chain with regard to environmental, social and governance criteria (ESG), and work in cooperation with partners. In the first phase, the focus will be on those aspects that have the greatest leverage effect.

In order to drastically reduce its own carbon footprint quickly, CERATIZIT is focusing on three major levers. The first decisive factor is an increase in the use of secondary raw materials to over 95%. Compared to primary raw materials from ore, their processing requires 70% less energy and reduces CO2 emissions by 40%. A positive side effect is the safeguarding of the supply chain for raw materials, so that both the customers and CERATIZIT benefit twice.

Another focus is on the power supply. CERATIZIT plans to switch the power supply of all sites to green electricity from wind, solar and waterpower in the next few years. Closely related to the change in power supply is the issue of hydrogen supply. It is needed as a production medium in the hard metal industry, especially to produce tungsten powder. Up to now this hydrogen has mainly been obtained from natural gas by steam reforming, so-called ‘grey’ hydrogen. In future CERATIZIT plans to use blue hydrogen, which is produced from water by electrolysis with green electricity. For this purpose, CERATIZIT will cooperate with its existing suppliers and build its own electrolysis plants.

The first milestone in the implementation of the new strategy is 2025, by which time CERATIZIT plans not only to be CO2 neutral, i.e. to offset all emissions along the entire supply chain. The goal is also to reduce the actual emissions by 35% compared to the reference year 2020. The second stage, 2030, envisages a reduction of 60% compared to 2020 with the help of further measures.

The most ambitious goal, however, is to achieve “net zero” by 2040 – a target envisaged by the Paris Climate Agreement only for 2050. “Reducing CO2 emissions along the entire value chain by at least 75% by 2040 is without question a challenge. However, with a view to future generations, we see no alternative to this path and are pleased to also let our customers participate in this through products such as our “GreenCarbide” rods, our award-winning SilverLine milling cutter with sustainability formula as well as a wide range of services,” Wolter explains the company’s motivation.