Minimising our impact

Ever heard of the circular economy? It's a hot topic right now, as the excess and waste humans inflict on the planet becomes more critical to solve every day. The theory behind it is that everything can be put to good use, if only we know what to do with it.

That's where our recycling programme Revert comes in.

Revert helps us make the most of the high-value metals that come out as waste products when we manufacture and reduces our need for additional raw materials.

Ben Godfrey, Vice President Procurement in raw materials, explains: "When we manufacture our engines, we start with big lumps of metal, heat them up, shape them and then machine most of it off. If we didn't think about what to do with that waste, about 90 per cent of that would go in the bin or be sold as scrap at the lowest possible price.

"But these are expensive elements and alloys that are hard to get out of the ground: rhenium, nickel, titanium, platinum, cobalt and tantalum. So by making the most of all the machined-off pieces, down to the dust, we can make sure it's not mined unnecessarily, heated up twice or knocked into shape again saving energy, as well as the cost of buying it twice."

Everyone plays a part

With a distributed supply chain of thousands of manufacturers across the world, reusing metal becomes everyone's business.

"Cutting metal consistently in a smart way and separating different metals properly can save so much waste," says Ben. "When you see a bin of metal scrap that costs as much as a Porsche, the big numbers in the budget spreadsheets start to become real.

It's a team effort, as they've already driven down waste by 50 per cent, and are aiming for even more in the future.

"The laws of physics mean we'll never be able to get clean recycled metal 100 per cent of the time, but we want to get as close to that as we can," adds Ben.

Purposeful passion

As a boy, Ben was always interested in taking things apart and putting them back together again to make them better.

"That's stayed with me. There's always a way to improve what we do. My initial interest in Revert started from thinking about how we could save costs, but it's grown into something that's incredibly purposeful. You can't separate the business case and the moral case for doing this: they have to be intertwined for real and systemic change in society, otherwise nothing meaningful would get done without the weight of industry.

"These past 18 months have truly given the aerospace industry a burning platform. We've been fighting for survival – but so have our suppliers and competitors.

"That's where we're starting to see real change. We're working together on sustainability as an industry – I've had three calls today where we've been sharing good practice. It's less an area where we have to compete and more of an area where we can collaborate. That's what will make a world of difference – and a difference to the world."

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