Pirelli: at the Rio+20 conference, presents projects with the Italian Environment Ministry and the Brazilian State of San Paolo to reduce the climate impact resulting from car tyre production at its Campinas plant
THE BRAZILIAN PLANT ALREADY AWARDED BY FIESP (SAN PAOLO INDUSTRIALISTS’ FEDERATION) FOR THE TOTAL RE-USAGE OF INDUSTRIAL PROCESS WATER
During the RIO+20 United Nations International Conference for Sustainable Development, Pirelli presented a number of projects which will be implemented in Brazil in cooperation with the Italian Ministry for the Environment and Tutelage of Land and Sea together with the Brazilian state of San Paolo, to analyze and reduce the climate impact resulting from car tyre production at its Campinas plant. The projects were presented by Pirelli’s Director of Sustainability and Risk Governance Filippo Bettini as one of the initiatives at the Italian pavilion during the Rio+20 Conference and in the presence of the Italian Minister Corrado Clini and the Chairman of Pirelli Brasile Paolo Dal Pino.
The projects are part of a number of commitments taken by the company during its “Sustainability Day”, which took place at the company’s Milan headquarters on 23 January 2012, and underline, in line with the sustainability targets of the 2012-2014 Industrial Plan presented in London last November, the company’s commitment to the realization of a sustainable and efficient growth model.
As a part of the projects presented today, Pirelli has committed to calculating, using internationally recognized calculation methods, the carbon footprint relative to the entire life cycle of one its tyres representing the production at its Campinas car tyre plant, in the Brazilian state of San Paolo. This study will also include the identification of the most economically sustainable and efficient interventions for the reduction of global warming gases linked to the tyre’s life cycle.
In March 2012, Pirelli’s Campinas plant, which covers an area of 120,000 square metres and employs over 2,000 people, received an award from FIESP (San Paolo’s Industrialists’ Association) for its project for the total re-utilization of water used in tyre production.
The carbon footprint will also be calculated for the bio-silica of the rice husk which is processed at Pirelli’s plant in the city of Meleiro, in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina. This process developed by Pirelli, both innovative and eco-compatible, uses the left-overs of rice processing to produce the first essential material for tyre compounds, as a substitute for the silica produced by conventional methods, which today has a greater environmental impact. A further project presented today entails the technical and economic analysis for the integration of solar thermal technology into some phases of the tyre production process, in place of fossil fuels.
In 2011, the various actions taken by Pirelli to reduce its environmental impact enabled the group to reduce both its specific consumption of energy and its specific CO2 emissions by 8% from 2009, with 28% lower specific drawing of water. Pirelli is also actively committed to the management of the collection chain and the devising of new collection methods for the recovery of tyres no longer in use (PFU). In Brazil, through the sector association ANIP, the company is a participant in the Riciclanip Consortium which in 2011 collected around 320,000 tons of used tyres.
With over 80 years’ presence in Brazil, Pirelli today has five factories for the production of tyres there: Gravataí (RS), Campinas (SP), Santo André (SP), Sumaré (SP) and Feira de Santana (BA). In total, the company employs about 9,000 people in these plants.
By 2015, the sustainability targets call for a reduction of both specific energy consumption and specific CO2 emissions of 15% and a reduction of 70% in the specific drawing of water compared with 2009.
