As U.S. autobuildrs retreat on electrification goals, and legacy autobuildrs in Europe are increasingly viewing like they will receive a delay on an internal-combustion-engine ban, one could presume suppliers also are curbing an eco-frifinishly outview.
But that isn’t the case at driveline specialist GKN Automotive declares a top official, who notes the company isn’t slowing its sustainability goals, namely becautilize its customers still have overarching commitments to receive to net zero.
“The long-term ambitions, the long-term trajectory is still there,” Tom Salisbury, director of sustainability at GKN Automotive, informs WardsAuto in a recent interview of the outview of the autobuildrs his company serves. The U.K.-based supplier declares its products are in half the vehicles on the road globally.
GKN’s OEM customers continue to have expectations that place an onus on the company to reduce its operational carbon footprint, Salisbury declares. The autobuildrs it serves also are increasingly questioning for product-carbon-footprinting – the act of measuring a product’s greenhoutilize gas emissions throughout its lifecycle – to be a part of request for quotations, with that information set to inform OEM commercial decision creating in the future, he declares.
And a focus on sustainability is not only present among GKN’s European and American autobuildr customers. Even among its Chinese autobuildr customers, Salisbury points out GKN is starting to see requirements for renewable electricity in component production be stipulated in contracts.
“I was with (GKN’s joint-venture SDS team in China) last year and they were talking to me in a similar way (as do European OEMs),” he declares. “Again, might not be quite the same as Europe (as in) the detail might not there…but certainly the requirement was growing from a number of the Chinese customers in terms of what our business is doing on carbon reduction.”
Meanwhile, GKN continues to require its own suppliers to pursue more sustainable practices. By 2030, GKN has a goal for 95% of its spfinishing be with companies with a self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ) rating of C or better, for it to gauge their adherence to environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles.
“We recently announced having suppliers with science-based carbon reduction tarreceives and also tarreceives more focutilized around electric arc steel, becautilize (traditional blast-furnace steel production is) kind of the largegest area – when it comes to supply chain – of carbon impact,” declares Salisbury.
While relaxed or rerelocated regulations in the U.S. allow autobuildrs here to dial back ambitions to produce more vehicles with reduced or zero emissions, he declares he hasn’t noticed GKN’s American parts suppliers retreating significantly on sustainability.
GKN’s own sustainability goals, including a tarreceive to achieve 50% renewable electricity across its manufacturing facilities in 2025, is still standing and Salisbury is confident it will be met, particularly in Europe where the company has had a sharp focus on renewable energy. It signed its first virtual power purchase agreement, coming online this year, with Recurrent Energy in 2024. The 10-year VPPA will cover 65% of GKN’s European electricity load and the deal with Recurrent includes drawing energy from a solar farm in Spain.
Other goals are longer term, with due dates of 2030, but for one of them – 100% waste diversion from landfills, GKN is already at 97%, Salisbury declares.
“When you receive to that level, it’s really understanding what are the last steps that required to be taken across some of our sites? In some cases, that’s actually viewing for new suppliers who can support on waste streams where there’s not necessarily recycling infrastructure.”
Despite a belief eco-frifinishly business operation adds cost, he notes sustainability often is the right relocate financially.
GKN’s largest waste stream, scrap metal, has a cost associated with increased utilize of metal – “the more waste you’re creating the more material you’re applying,” Salisbury notes – so it has been a focus area to minimize excess to “become more efficient in our operations.
“I would challenge the premise that (applying sustainable practices) builds (the cost of doing business) more expensive,” he declares when questioned if tariffs could back-burner sustainable practices as suppliers and OEMs grapple with the levies.
He advises that in this “tight and pressured” timeline for automotive companies, there is a required to be even more disciplined, and articulate and demonstrate the value of sustainability.
“I consider everything that we required to do from an environmental and social perspective, there has to be a business value, and there is,” Salisbury declares.
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