Our business activities result in carbon emissions at our company and along our value chain. We pledge to our responsibility by putting a high priority on a significant and timely reduction of our carbon footprint.
0.0 carbon emissions by 2025, Scope 1+2
We will be carbon-neutral for our own operations by 2025. This commitment includes reducing our energy consumption by 20% compared to base year 2019 and transitioning to 100% green electricity. Only the remaining emissions will be offset.
0.0 fossil fuels by 2033, Scope 1+2
We aim to reach net zero in our own operations by transitioning our processes to electricity or green hydrogen. Only residual emissions of less than 10% compared to base year 2019 will be offset.
-50% indirect carbon emissions by 2033, Scope 3
We will reduce carbon emissions along our value chain, for example by engaging with mining partners to actively support their decarbonization efforts and by increasing the proportion of recycled metals in our products.
Svea Scherleithner
Global Head of Sustainability Heraeus Precious Metals
In 2021, we committed ourselves to the most ambitious climate program in the industry: carbon neutrality for our own operations by 2025 and net zero by 2033. In 2023, we additionally set ourselves the target of achieving a 50% reduction in emissions along our value chain by 2033.
In 2023, we successfully reduced our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 25% compared to 2022. Since 2019, we reduced them by 41%, while growing our business by 47%.
In 2023, 96% of our Scope 3 emissions resulted from the purchase of precious metals. Compared to 2022, our Scope 3 emissions increased by 6%. This is mainly caused by an increase in purchased gold. We acknowledge that volatile and cyclic market demands, especially for gold, will continue to be a challenge. Yet, we are positive that we will reach our set targets with the measures planned.
Our goal: 20% energy efficiency increase in current processes until 2025, referring to our base year 2019.
Our ambition has been further integrated in all our business processes:
Where we stand
Since 2019, our business grew by 47%. At the same time, we have been able to reduce our absolute energy consumption by 13%.
Optimizing energy-intensive processes
We have implemented an ambitious energy-efficiency program and are continuously driving projects to reduce our energy consumption in our processes worldwide.
We used a data-driven approach to reduce the run times of our furnaces, in which precious metals containing waste is processed for recycling. Our in-house developed “burn time optimization algorithm” enables us to determine the completion of the burn process live in the furnace. This innovation resulted in a significant reduction of the average burn time from nine to seven hours per batch, equaling a saving of more than 200 tCO2e annually.
We have developed the world's first electric chamber furnace for thermal preparation together with our equipment manufacturing partner. Furnaces are essential for processing precious metals and are commonly heated with fossil fuels. An electric furnace is thus a significant milestone on our journey to end the use of fossil fuels like natural gas. It will expand our existing recycling capacities and enable us to process further materials like fuel cell membranes. Another special feature is the energy recovery of the connected exhaust gas treatment: Around 60% of the energy used can be recovered. In total, the new furnace will save around 570 tCO2e per year and conserve 2.25 million kWh annually by using the recovered energy. The project is a pilot, and we plan to transfer the approach to other furnaces at our production sites around the world.
At our site in Nanjing, China, we implemented various measures to improve incineration lines and successfully reduced natural gas consumption. One measure focused on the afterburn chambers, in which exhaust gas is treated at high temperatures. By enhancing the temperature control, we significantly minimized variances. Further optimizations on the incineration system included measures for detecting and reducing air leakages.
In addition, we optimized our burning process and reduced burning times. In total, these measures saved around 730 tCO2e and 3.65 million kWh in 2023. We expect even higher savings in 2024.
Our goal: 100% green electricity at all our sites by 2025.
We strive for solutions that add additional renewable energy capacities.
Where we stand
Goal: We will completely eliminate the use of fossil fuels by 2033.
