Continental Takes Next Steps Towards Sustainable Operations

New photovoltaic (PV) system installed at Timișoara production facility

- Seven other locations already approved PV installation in 2024

- Three pilot plants chosen to evaluate how carbon-neutrality can be achieved in a production environment

Hanover, Germany, January 5, 2024. In accordance with Continental's sustainability ambition, the group sector ContiTech has taken the next concrete steps towards transforming its own production facilities into sustainable factories. ContiTech recently installed a new PV system in Timișoara, Romania. Other locations are expected to follow in the coming months. Furthermore, the group sector has chosen three production facilities worldwide as pilot projects to find the best approach for carbon neutral operations.

Each of our production facilities faces their own specific challenges in reaching green operations by 2040 at the latest,” said Claus-Peter Spille, Senior Vice President Operations at ContiTech. “With the pilot projects, we provide our locations a comprehensive guidance on how to implement systematic operational environmental management at their site.

Sustainability is both an enormous opportunity and a decisive driver for innovation. As the first choice for material-driven solutions in a variety of industries, we are dedicated to address the challenges our world is facing,” continued Philip Nelles, Member of Continental’s Executive Board for ContiTech. “Our recent steps towards greener operations prove that reducing the impact of climate change, together with our partners along the value chain, is a task to which we are strongly committed.

Expanding emission-free energy production

The recently installed PV system in Timișoara is expected to produce approximately 930 MWh annually of emission-free electricity. Additional to Timișoara, where the company is producing hoses and belts, the locations in Subotica (Serbia), Szeged (Hungary), Wagrowiec (Poland), Weissbach (Germany), Changzhou (China), Kalyani (India) and Chihuahua (Mexico) have already approved their own PV projects and will install their respective systems in the coming months. ContiTech expects with these installations a yearly electricity generation of 5900 MWh, which represents the electricity consumption of 2950 households in Germany.

Pilot plants in Canada, Germany and China to reach CO2 neutrality by 2030

Furthermore, ContiTech has defined three locations, Changzhou (China), Granby (Canada) and Dannenberg (Germany), as pilot sites for green operations. Their success, based on concrete measures and activities, will provide guidance to the other plants within ContiTech on how to implement similar measures to operate carbon neutral in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 2040 at the latest.

Each plant in each region is operating under very unique conditions, so we cannot expect that a successful approach at one site can simply be copied to another,” explained Claus-Peter Spille. “But with these three pilot projects, we are convinced to find best practices tailored for each region that can then be rolled-out and adapted to the other plants.

Ambitious sustainability goals for production sites

To make every production facility around the world a green factory, Continental has set itself specific targets when it comes to operational environmental management. By 2030 the company wants to reduce its energy consumption by 20 %, increase the recovery quota to 95 % and decrease waste generation by 2 % each year. Furthermore, Continental aims to decrease its water withdrawal by 4 % in high-risk water regions and by 2 % in moderate-risk water regions, all of them relative to sales.

Head of Media & Public Relations