Environment
Operational environmental management is a fixed component of our company policy. Our corporate environmental strategy aims to continuously reduce energy and water consumption, CO2 emissions and waste in our own operations, while simultaneously increasing the recovery quota for operational waste.
Environmental Strategy
Our strategy, which defines the objectives, key figures and measures, forms the framework for our environmental management activities. We are guided in this by the United Nations’ sustainable development goals (SDGs). We have four strategic focus areas: carbon neutrality, energy efficiency, water protection and waste reduction in our own operations.
We are fully committed to the Paris climate agreement. The Continental Group’s 2040 climate goal and ambition for 2050 were reviewed by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) in 2020 and out interim targets for 2030 were confirmed as being compliant with the Paris climate agreement. The derived absolute emission reductions for our own operations are set to keep us on track for the 1.5°C pathway. In order to achieve its targets, Continental has identified several opportunities to reduce emissions and, for example, has been purchasing electricity exclusively from renewable sources at all of its own sites since 2020.
By pursuing extensive sustainability goals, we are not only acting responsibly toward the environment and society – we are also acting in the interests of creating value for our company. The challenges of climate change and limited resources require our innovative prowess in order to develop innovative technologies and efficient products. We also demand comprehensive environmental management on the part of our suppliers. Where necessary, we help them to develop efficient environmental management systems – e.g. through joint projects and training.
Our goals and key figures
In our locations, we are working on making processes more efficient and more sustainable. We have set clear reduction targets for our four focus topics:
With a uniform and global reporting system, we ensure that our environmental goals are observed across the corporation. The latest figures can be found in the sustainability report.
Since the introduction of the ISO 14001 standard in 1996, certification at Continental has also been conducted according to this international environmental management standard. Compliance with targets is reviewed by means of regular internal and external audits conducted as part of ISO 14001. In this context, environmental indicators for specific consumption and emissions per ton of finished product are derived. Examples include energy and water consumption, waste production, and CO2 emissions. At the end of 2022, a great majority of our production and development locations were certified according to ISO 14001 (environmental management) and to ISO 50001 (energy management).
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