Environment

An innovative and responsible business model

As a global, industry-leading Group, Brembo has long since enunciated its responsible, sustainable business principles, and is gradually making them into a reality, by transforming its operating model – increasingly oriented towards energy efficiency, energy sources diversification and rational use of water. This operating model is based on increasingly strict, innovative requirements capable of anticipating future legislation, with the goal of adopting solutions that may ensure industrial development while respecting the environment, minimising the environmental impact of its processes and continuing to create value for its stakeholders.
It is thus a matter of balancing between financial considerations and social and environmental responsibility.

Brembo’s greenhouse gas emissions are chiefly connected with the functioning of production facilities. It is for this reason that environment-related actions aim, on the one hand, at reducing atmospheric emissions through an increased process efficiency, on the other, at gradually increasing the use of electrical energy from renewable sources.
The Group’s tangible commitment is further proved by the fact that these elements, as of 2018, form part of the performance assessment scheme for each of the Group‘s managers.
In addition to the direct involvement of top management, the journey towards a more sustainable model is also based on spreading a robust culture of sustainability throughout the Brembo community, with the aim of fostering the creation of innovative ideas and the possibility for taking advantage of all new stimuli to achieve increasingly ambitious environmental sustainability objectives.

Brembo’s constant investment in research into innovative solutions capable of reducing environmental impact of its operations is thus a natural consequence of this approach.
For instance, assessments of whether to self-generate reduced- impact electricitycontinued in 2023, as did inquiries into using hydrogen in replacement of natural gas in production processes.
In addition, in 2023 Brembo continued work on formulating an environmental and energy standard to be applied to the processes of designing and purchasing new plant and machinery and the construction of buildings.

Over the last years it has been clear that climate change also has a direct impact on access to water. Therefore, the environmental protection process embarked on by Brembo also includes rational use of water.

In this area the propensity for technological innovation, along with awareness of the water resource’s value, has led the Group to identify and gradually introduce new production processes entailing a more efficient water use aiming at limiting its use, eliminating waste and avoiding any possible form of contamination. In particular, Brembo’s commitment is most evident in the plants located in highly water-stressed locations due to the climatic and hydrogeological conditions of the area and for which important performance improvement projects were implemented during 2023.

In keeping with the last year, 2023 as well was characterised by the constant increase in requests from all stakeholders for information on environmental impacts. These stakeholders include customers, with many of whom joint activities have been launched to identify solutions that can reduce environmental impact, first and foremost the impact of climate change. The areas of discussion and collaboration with customers concern many other areas including energy efficiency, renewable energy supply, circular economy and more generally all those aimed at achieving a reduction in the environmental impact of products from a life-cycle perspective. The Brembo Group proved to be ready and prepared to respond in a concrete manner to the growing demands in the ESG field, in particular those relating to environmental issues, which have become fundamental and essential elements of the business. In fact, the development and implementation of a strategy aimed at pursuing “Environmental and Energy Excellence” is underway, the ultimate goal of which being to achieve the lowest environmental impact and greatest energy efficiency technologically achievable.

The system for effective management of environmental and energy impacts

In light of the climate-related scenario of the last years, the regulatory pressure and the growing interest from stakeholders — communities, governments, customers, investors — towards the environmental and sustainability-related performance, Brembo has developed and maintains an up-to-date Environmental Management System compliant with the ISO 14001:2015 standard in order to maintain an optimal management of all the aspects relating to its environmental impacts. Thanks to this System, the Group is able to comply with the constantly evolving regulatory requirements and implement tools aimed at minimising its impact and its environmental risks. Moreover, since 2019 the Management System has also incorporated the requirements of standard ISO 50001: 2018 relating to energy management.

Energy consumption

When choosing energy sources, Brembo favours renewable energy sources over fossil fuels, on the one hand by pursuing in 2023 as well the Group’s commitment relating to renewable energy purchases, on the other by increasing its self-production capacity, including through the installation of photovoltaic panels.

The energy quota from renewable sources which the Group procured rose from 69% in 2022 to 75% in 2023. This result was achieved thanks to the purchase of renewable energy certificates (Guarantee of Origin, I-RECs, RECs, etc.), PPAs (Power Purchasing Agreements) and other contractual agreements.

100% renewable electricity at Italian sites was maintained in 2023 as well through the purchase of guarantee of origin certificates and electricity generated by photovoltaic systems installed at the Sellero production facility.
 

ANALYSIS OF MAIN MEASURES TO REDUCE ENERGY CONSUMPTION AT GLOBAL LEVEL

**** Category of intervention including the reduction of electricity, thus impacting on Scope 2 emissions.
***** Category of intervention including the reduction of both electricity and natural gas, thus impacting on Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions.

Greenhouse gas emissions

Brembo’s policy on climate change has included, since 2015, increasingly challenging objectives consistent with the commitments set by the United Nations during the COP21 in Paris in order to combat climate change effects.
To win this challenge Brembo implemented a strategy structured into a series of actions aimed at achieving short-, medium- and long-term objectives to cut its greenhouse gas emissions.

In detail , the Group set an annual sustainability goal defined as a percentage of emissions avoided due to improvements, including efficient use of any form of energy and the use of renewable energy, compared with the previous year’s emission levels. In 2023, the target of reducing CO2eq emissions thanks to the improvement actions, compared to the previous year’s emissions, set at 20%, was reached and exceeded with a result of about 31.7%.
This was achieved thanks to the energy efficiency projects implemented in all the Group’s plants and the increase in the share of renewable energy purchased in Poland, Czech Republic, US, India and China.

Immagine

* * Scope 1 and market-based Scope 2 emissions generated by foundries / gross tonnes of molten cast iron and molten aluminium.
** ** Scope 1 and market-based Scope 2 emissions generated by the pieces manufactured / total number of pieces manufactured.
*** The plants falling within the ISO 14001 certification scope are operating industrial plants or plants that have been part of the Group for at least two years.
**** The plants falling within the ISO 50001 certification scope are operating industrial plants or plants that have been part of the Group for at least two years
and with energy consumption exceeding 5,000 GJ.