Lubrizol pledges to further cut greenhouse gas emissions
Lubrizol Corporation has pledged for greater reductions in the company’s environmental footprint, with new goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and waste across its global manufacturing sites. The U.S.-based company is one of the world’s leading producers of additives for fuels and lubricants.
“With Lubrizol technology in more than half of the vehicles on earth and touching the everyday lives of billions of people through a variety of solutions in a wide array of products, the company’s impact today is tremendous,” says Elizabeth Grove, chief sustainability officer, Lubrizol. “We have even more opportunity in the years ahead with our sustainable mission goals and new environmental stewardship goals, which will reduce our footprint, bring greater impact from our handprint and improve the environment in the communities we call home.”
Emissions Reductions
Lubrizol said it is committing to reducing the company’s Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2030. In the past year, Lubrizol sites have continued to migrate to cleaner-burning natural gas for heat and transportation, recaptured energy that can be used for heat, instituted new processes to reduce energy consumption and upgraded the efficiency of the company’s lighting, production and office equipment, among other efforts. Reduction targets for Scope 3 emissions, including reducing raw material and transportation impacts, will be added later this year.
In addition to its footprint contributions, the company’s handprint opportunities are immense. In 2020, the company committed to help the world “Move Cleaner,” enabling a 50% reduction in vehicle emissions by 2040. In addition, the company committed to helping its customers “Create Smarter,” increasing the circularity impact of its products by 25% by 2028, whenLubrizol celebrates its centennial year.
Outside of these direct opportunities to influence emissions reduction, the company also pledges to increase funding to causes that ensure climate change resilience. This includes a multi-year partnership with Cleveland Metroparks in Northeast Ohio, home to the company’s global headquarters, to make the Park District’s 16,000 forested acres more resilient to the impact of climate change. With funding from The Lubrizol Foundation, the Metroparks will undertake new research, including calculating the amount of CO2 captured by its trees, understanding storage and sequestration across its 16,000 forest acres and developing guidelines to embed resilience to the impact of climate change into forestry and conservation strategies.
The company also is one of several Berkshire Hathaway companies donating to The Nature Conservancy’s Plant a Billion Trees Campaign, with the goal of planting a billion trees across the planet. The Lubrizol Foundation’s support for the Montana State Parks Foundation and Armand Bayou Nature Center in Texas are also focused on preserving biodiversity in the places where its employees live.
In the last year, Lubrizol employees across the globe have participated in community clean ups, partnered with local ecologic fruit and vegetable producers and encouraged employees to make personal commitments to environmental change, amongst many other activities.
