Birla Carbon, a subsidiary of the Aditya Birla Group and global manufacturer of carbon black, released its ninth annual sustainability report — entitled Driving Circularity — on Thursday.
The report centres around Birla Carbon’s stages in accomplishing circularity with the introduction of Continua™, sustainable carbonaceous materials (SCM), alongside its emphasis towards a culture of advancement and the overall goal of accomplishing net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The 2021 report underlines the goals that Birla Carbon achieved during the year to achieve its sustainability targets and strengthen its industry leadership.
Highlights of the 2021 report:
- Launch of a new sustainable brand, Continua™ and a first fully circular product Continua™ 8000.
- Focus to achieve net zero carbon emissions By 2050
- 68% of waste is repurposed, including recycling, reuse, and recovery.
- Achieved an absolute energy conversion efficiency rate of 70.9%.
- Progressed partnership with CHASM Advanced Materials
- For fourth consecutive year, Birla Carbon got, ‘Gold’ rating for Sustainable Practices by EcoVadis awards
Sharing his thoughts on the report, John Loudermilk, CEO, Birla Carbon, said, “We define sustainability in the broadest terms to ensure that we are leveraging every aspect of it, to ascertain the future for our business, our customers, our communities, and the world. We have incorporated sustainability, circularity, and innovation into our business to create value for our stakeholders along with staying true to our purpose to ‘Share the Strength’.”
He added, “Our 2021 report extends our circularity efforts, as we have now introduced SCM, with our Continua™ offering, to close the circularity loop. The report assesses our sustainability efforts from the previous year and sets the tone for the future of our business as we commit to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.”
Birla Carbon aims to achieve its newly set goal by focusing on four key areas – research, reduce replace and repurpose.
With research, the company will invest and develop new technologies that capture and convert carbon dioxide into valuable carbon products. To reduce its waste, 80% of Birla’s manufacturing facilities now convert waste gas to energy for export to the local grid. Company locations will also replace energy sources with renewable alternatives, alongside using alternate feedstocks derived from biomass, and the company will map out its existing and future technologies alongside developing partnerships with customers, suppliers and experts to create associations and programs to aid in achieving the net-zero goal.