SWEP Sustainability Report 2020

Breaking down our carbon footprint

Reducing emissions from freight

Waste heat recovery

Reduction in business travel 2020 saw us make excellent progress in reducing freight emissions. We set ourselves targets based on CO e emissions for every kilogram of heat exchanger 2 produced. This metric gives us a clearer picture of the impact of shipping and freight, because it’s not contingent on fluctuations in production. We far exceeded our target of a 10% reduction in freight emissions – we managed to cut them by 17% this year (kgCO e/kg). This was driven by substantial reductions 2 in express (43%) and air freight (23%) emissions. We’ve converted to road and sea freight where feasible, and we’ll continue to work closely with our forwarders to find solutions that reduce emissions even further. With the spread of COVID-19, it’s been a unique year for business travel. Unsurprisingly, our travel emissions per employee dropped massively (88%) in 2020. This wasn’t, however, entirely due to the pandemic – we recorded significant emissions reductions in January and February before travel restrictions took hold, and the decrease in business travel has not been the main driver of our improved carbon footprint. We’ve developed effective remote working methods over the last 12 months, and we expect that many of these will stay in place even after the pandemic has receded, and will help us to reduce business travel and associated emissions in the long-term.

Energy efficiency The process which consumes most electricity in SWEP’s manufacturing sites is the heating of our brazing furnaces. Our Landskrona plant, in collaboration with the energy company E.ON, have been investigating ways of capturing the heat energy released during this process, and using it for heating nearby industrial buildings. This will reduce the energy that’s used to heat premises in our neighborhood, and will also lower the energy needs of our cooling towers. The pilot phase of the project, called ectogrid™, is due to be completed in spring 2021. Energy efficiency remains a top priority, and 2020 has seen innovative measures put in place at our sites across the world. Braze batch optimization – that is, altering the number of plates brazed in a cycle – has been a key area of focus this year, and has the potential to further reduce emissions per kilogram of output. There has been significant overhauls of lighting and equipment in our plants in the United States, Malaysia and Sweden, which will bring efficiency improvements and reduced energy use. Our premises in Tulsa, USA and Hildesheim, Germany are both now powered entirely by renewable energy.

SWEP SUSTAINABILITY REPORT 2020

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