Bombardier's energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions each fell by three percent over FY 2011, according to the company's 2011 CSR Overview.
Energy consumption fell from 5 million to 4.86 million gigajoules, down further from 5.02 million gigajoules in FY07. GHG emissions fell from 361,000 to 349,000 tons of CO2e, also down from the FY07 level of 373,000.
Meanwhile water consumption fell from 2.30 million to 2.28 million cubic meters in FY11, down further from 2.54 million cubic meters in FY07.
The overview, entitled Connecting The Dots, presents an eight-page snapshot of the Company’s CSR activities over the past year, running from February 1, 2010 to January 31, 2011.
From 2008 through 2010, the company issued a full CSR Report every fall. But its Corporate Audit Services and Risk Assessment team recently completed an extensive audit of its CSR reporting processes and systems, and to follow the team's recommendations on materiality and timeliness, Bombardier decided to start issuing its CSR reports to coincide with its annual reports in March.
Bombardier decided to release this overview to provide a snapshot of its CSR activities in the interim.
The overview said that between FY2007 and FY2011, the company saved enough water to fill 88 Olympic-sized swimming pools; took more than 260 loaded trucks’ worth of waste off the road; took more than 100 loaded trucks’ worth of hazardous waste off the road; saved enough energy to power the street lights in a city of 530,000 people for a year; and saved GHG emissions equivalent to removing more than 4,510 cars from the road for one year
In 2010, the company created the Bombardier Green Fund to elicit and leverage the best site-related initiatives submitted by employees to improve its energy efficiency and overall environmental performance. Since then, six pilot sites representing 16 percent of the Transportation group’s carbon footprint delivered more than 60 project plans.
At its Aerospace division, Bombardier selected 19 initiatives out of nearly 200 Green Fund ideas submitted. Employees at its Queretaro facility in Mexico suggested installing a ground rainwater tank to collect runoff from the roof to use as grey water for the plant, helping conserve water in one of the country’s driest regions.
The company's environmental targets call for an additional three percent cut in water consumption through FY2012, against an FY2010 baseline; a further 10 percent cut in energy consumption and GHG emissions through FY2013, against an FY2009 baseline; and an extra nine percent cut in waste and hazardous waste through FY2012, against an FY2010 baseline.
As of fiscal 2011, the scope of its reported environmental and energy data includes: buildings it owns or leases in the long term and manages as the sole tenant, with more than 50,000 square feet of conditioned space; sites having 150 employees or more; sites that are considered primary production/operation and service facilities; and group headquarters. Joint ventures (where it controls less than 50 percent) are excluded. This scope is revised compared to previous years but the changes are not significant, Bombardier said.
In 2010 the company launched the Global 7000 and Global 8000 business aircraft, which it says achieve a 14 to 18 percent lower fuel burn, compared to the Global 6000. It also recently launched three ECO4 energy-saving rail technologies: the EcoSilent Optimized Sound Design for noise reduction, EnerGstor Wayside Energy Storage for capturing, storing and feeding back braking energy into the system, and EcoEfficient Optimized Environmental Performance for analyzing the environmental footprint throughout the products’ entire lifecycle.
During 2010, it further integrated a Design for Environment (DfE) approach into the development of all new aircraft programs. The Aerospace DfE team now consists of seven experts with a dedicated DfE specialist forming an integral part of each new program team, and DfE requirements are embedded in the technical documents that guide the day-to-day job of designing these aircraft, Bombardier says. It’s also working to issue environmental product declarations for all new aircraft programs upon entry into service, in what the company calls an industry first.
Bombardier says that aerospace suppliers representing 90 percent of aircraft-related procurement spend and 70 percent of non-aircraft related spend have committed to its Supplier Code of Conduct. All 469 main Transportation suppliers, accounting for 80 percent of the group’s procurement spend, now follow the code.
In June 2010 the company became a champion of the supplier improvement program MACH, initiated by Aero Montreal. The public-private partnership supports supplier development through public investment, supplier-customer collaboration and training sessions.
In FY2011 Bombardier was listed on the Dow Jones Sustainability World and Dow Jones Sustainability North America indexes for the fifth consecutive year. It also ranked among Corporate Knights’ 50 best corporate citizens in Canada, and was number one in the environment category, the company said.
