03 Climate is precious to us

Climate protection is one of humankind’s biggest challenges. Rising sea levels, forest fires, severe weather events, and loss of biodiversity are just a few of the adverse impacts of climate change.

 

Our business activities result in carbon emissions at our company and along our value chain. We pledge to our responsibility by putting a high priority on a significant and timely reduction of our carbon footprint.

Targets and KPIs

Carbon-neutral

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Carbon emissions
by 2025, Scope 1+2

We will be carbon-neutral for our own operations by 2025. This commitment includes reducing our energy consumption by 20%* and transitioning to 100% green electricity. Only the remaining emissions will be offset.

Net-zero

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Fossil fuels
by 2033, Scope 1+2

We aim to reach net zero in our own operations by transitioning our processes to electricity or green hydrogen. Only residual emissions of less than 10%* will be offset.

-50%

Indirect carbon
emissions by 2033,
Scope 3**

We will reduce carbon emissions along our value chain, for example by engaging with mining partners to actively support their decarbonization efforts and by increasing the proportion of secondary metals in our products.

*Savings compared to our emissions in the 2019 baseline year.
**Savings compared to our emissions in the 2020 baseline year.

Emissions

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol has defined three “scopes” of emissions:

Scope 1

GHG emissions generated directly by the company’s activity

Scope 2

GHG emissions from the generation of purchased energy consumed by the company

Scope 3

GHG emissions occurring in the company’s value chain

Where we stand

Following an encouraging multi-year trend, in 2023 we made significant progress in reducing emissions from our own operations. We reduced our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 11% compared to 2022, and if we extend the comparison to 2019, we reduced our emissions by 74%.

At our headquarters in Mendrisio, we achieved a 16% reduction in our direct CO2 emissions (Scope 1) compared to the previous year. We purchase electricity generated from 100% renewable sources, and produce our own through the extended photovoltaic system. This has enabled us to completely eliminate CO2 emissions deriving from the purchase of energy (Scope 2) since 2022.

 

We also achieved a significant reduction in CO2 emissions at our production site in Hong Kong. Thanks to measures to improve the efficiency of production activities, we managed to achieve a reduction of 8% (Scope 1 and 2) in 2023 compared to the previous year.

 

Our sites in Pforzheim, Germany and Cavenago di Brianza, Italy have always maintained minimal CO2 emissions. In any case, thanks to the efforts mainly related to the purchase of renewable energy, we managed to reduce CO2 emissions to zero at these locations as well.

 

Overall, we have achieved very positive results in reducing Scope 1 and 2 emissions. However, the key challenge is to reduce Scope 3 emissions. In 2023, these accounted for 99.97% of our total emissions, with 99% originating from the purchase of precious metals. We recognize that in order to reduce emissions along the value chain, we need to work together with our mining partners. This is why we have also set ourselves Scope 3 reduction targets.

 

In 2023, our Scope 3 emissions increased by 11%. This was mainly due to an increase in purchased gold. We acknowledge that volatile and cyclical market demands, especially for gold, will continue to be a challenge. Yet we are confident that our planned actions will enable us to reach our set targets.

Scope 1 and 2 emissions

in tCO2e

No Data Found

Scope 3 emissions

in tCO2e

No Data Found

Energy consumption

We rely on three main sources of energy for our production and business activities and to heat our buildings:

Electricity

Electricity accounts for the majority of our energy consumption. In addition to purchasing electricity, we operate solar panels on our production buildings.

Natural gas

Natural gas is mainly used for heating buildings and for production processes. Consumption is therefore linked to weather conditions and refining volumes.

Propane

In the foundries we use propane to create the protective atmosphere necessary for the gold and silver casting processes. Consumption is highly correlated to the quantities of gold and silver bars produced.

Where we stand

As in previous years, we worked hard to reduce energy consumption in line with our commitment. We made significant progress at our two sites.

In Mendrisio, we achieved a reduction of 11% in the use of natural gas compared to 2022, due to the optimized management of heating. Thanks to a more careful usage of all electrical machinery and other efficiency measures, we reduced the consumption of purchased electricity by 5% in the same timeframe. The installation of new solar panels led to an increase in self-generated green electricity of 62%.

In Hong Kong, we continued to implement efficiency measures in all areas leading to a 9% reduction in energy consumption in 2023.

Our sites in Pforzheim and in Cavenago di Brianza consume minimal energy in the form of purchased electricity compared to our Mendrisio and Hong Kong sites. These locations account less than 1% of our total energy consumption.

Energy consumption (in MWh)

Mendrisio, Switzerland

No Data Found

Energy consumption (in MWh)

Hong Kong, China

No Data Found

*In Hong Kong, the fuel mix for TCG gas (Town Gas Production) includes natural gas, naphtha and landfill gas.

Projects and initiatives

We have installed solar power panels on all our buildings and are currently operating more than 1,000 individual modules at our site in Mendrisio, Switzerland. In 2023, we upgraded our oldest building, which dates back to 1986, by installing a new solar power plant to supplement the existing one.

After an investment of more than CHF 300,000 the new system can produce roughly 235 MWh of additional electrical power per year. Altogether, in Mendrisio, our solar panels produce around 3-4% of our overall electricity consumption. We did not limit ourselves to our Swiss site: In 2023, we also added rooftop photovoltaic panels to our Hong Kong site. Due to local conditions, the produced electricity in Hong Kong is fed into the grid and therefore does not directly reduce the quantity of purchased electricity in our figures.

Propane is used in the production of gold and silver, to avoid surface oxidation during melting and casting processes. However, the use of propane generates direct CO2 emissions. We are in the process of eliminating the CO2 emission related to protected atmosphere through propane combustion by substituting it with nitrogen.

Avoiding free flames due to propane combustion will also have additional positive effects in terms of production process safety. In 2023, in Mendrisio, we reduced the use of propane by 32%. At our site in Hong Kong, after a strong reduction the year before, the usage of propane increased from 16 to 36 MWh. This was due to increased business activities and does not detract from our aim to eliminate its usage completely going forward.

Our parent company, Heraeus Precious Metals, has appointed a team of experts to visit the various production facilities and identify potential ways to reduce energy use and create savings. In 2023, the Task Force Energy identified 38 measures to further increase energy efficiency at our site in Mendrisio. The measures identified —related to infrastructure adjustments, optimization of ventilation, use of high-efficiency electric motors, and many others — led to an overall reduction of energy consumption of approximately 320 MWh in 2023.

We conducted a thermodynamic analysis of all production processes requiring heating or cooling. This allowed us to identify opportunities to recover energy from certain processes and transfer it to others, reducing energy dissipation and increasing overall efficiency. This will generate energy savings in 2024.

By optimizing heating and cooling of our buildings in winter and summer we have achieved savings of almost 400 MWh per year.

MWH
0

SAVED BY OPTIMIZING HEATING AND COOLING

We substituted all light bulbs at our site in Mendrisio with high-efficiency LED bulbs, generating an overall saving of 87 MWh. We started a similar project in Hong Kong, installing motion sensors to make the use of light bulbs even more efficient. The latter project is still under development, but has already saved 20 MWh last year.

04 Resources are precious to us

Our business activities rely on precious resources. We live up to our responsibility by improving our processes and products so that they require fewer and fewer resources and by adopting circular approaches wherever possible. This includes responsible waste management and disposal, and an environmentally conscious use of chemicals and water. Our commitment to conserving resources is reinforced by our recycling efforts, which help to keep precious metals within the cycle of use.