Becoming a low carbon business

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Becoming a low carbon business

Becoming a low carbon business

Our journey to becoming a low carbon business

Reaching net zero operations, facilities and product test by 2050

We are committed to reaching net zero emissions from our operations, facilities and product test by 2050.

To do this, we have committed to reduce our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 46% by 2030 against a 2019 baseline. Our number one priority will always be safety, followed by maximising in-service product efficiency.

We are focused on delivering this commitment in a safe, cost-effective manner and we have made good progress already: we have already reduced our annual Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 21% since 2019.

SEE OUR ANNUAL REPORT FOR MORE INFORMATION

Reducing the environmental impact of our operations

We are doing everything we can to reduce the environmental impacts of our operations and have already made good progress.

In 2015 we set ourselves a series of operational targets. These have helped us to cut our greenhouse gas emissions by 187,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent since 2014. Here are some of our other achievements since then.

£184m

Invested in sustainable, energy efficient new facilities

40%

Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (scope 1 & 2)

29%

Reduction in energy consumption per £1m revenue

71%

Reduction in waste sent to landfill

Reducing our energy use
Energy efficiency is vital to achieving our net zero 2030 goal. That’s why we have invested over £30m in energy efficiency improvement projects since 2014.

These include upgrading lighting, updating heating and installing networked building management systems. We expect to spend about the same again over the next five years to help us hit our target of net zero.

On-site deployment of renewables and low-carbon technology

We have cut absolute CO2 emissions by 50% since 2014 by introducing renewable and low-carbon technologies at our sites.

One of the ways we have done this is by installing solar panels as part of a global initiative called Project Sunshine at our facilities in Singapore, the UK, Europe and North America.

Our ground source heat pump and solar thermal hybrid technology project enable us to collect, store and provide heat at our site in Bristol, UK, throughout the year.

We plan to increase the proportion of our global energy requirements with on-site renewables or low-carbon technologies from its current 25%.


Mamta Bhasin, Global Category Manager – Supplier Sourcing & Strategy, Asia Pacific, Rolls-Royce

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“Solar is an important and inexhaustible source of energy. Being able to harness natural energy and use it to power our operations will enable us to reduce the environmental impact of our operations and gain greater pricing certainty for the future.”

Buying in renewable energy
Where we are unable to produce our own renewable or low-carbon energy, we seek to buy 100% renewable energy from elsewhere.

In 2019, we switched our facilities in the UK and Germany to electricity contracts backed by the Renewable Energy Guarantee of Origin (REGO) scheme. This reduced our emissions under greenhouse gas reporting frameworks by 21%.

Closed-loop manufacturing
Components made of exotic materials are critical to the safety and efficiency of our products and each year, we use over 20,000 tonnes of high-value metal alloys.

We’re working to reuse as much metal as we can through our closed-loop recycling programme, saving approximately 300,000 megawatt hours of energy and 80,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.

Moving forward, we’re also designing more re-usable materials into our products and building new supply chains for these where needed.

REDUCING RESOURCE DEMAND
Reducing our emissions using our own products
Deploying our own innovative energy solutions at our own sites.

At our manufacturing facility in Friedrichshafen, Germany, we have installed a microgrid where gas engines are combined with battery and solar photovoltaic panels to provide 30% of the site’s energy demand.

Microgrid solutions can provide the intelligent use of energy from renewable sources for our customers as well. In the UK, the MOD accounts for 50% of Government-generated carbon emissions and the figure is even higher in the US. As the MOD modernises its estate, the application of a microgrid could not only provide a significant first step for a military base seeking to reduce its emissions, but also drive a much more efficient and cost-effective use of energy.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT MICROGRIDS

Stefanie Cray, Business Development Manager Microgrids, Friedrichshafen, Rolls-Royce

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“Our microgrid helps us to reduce our energy costs and carbon emissions on-site, while allowing us to demonstrate system and component behaviour in real time.”

Rigorous and safe testing is our most important challenge
Product safety testing is a critical part of engine development

We will seek to mitigate the emissions associated with product testing by increasing the use of lower-carbon alternative fuels as availability rises and using digital modelling and other technologies to replace some physical testing where appropriate in our product testing regime.

We recognise the need to ensure these activities are aligned with our decarbonisation goals and are committed to working with customers, regulators and industry partners to explore ways to meet our product testing demands without generating carbon emissions.

As an interim measure we aim to use SAF in 10% of our civil aerospace testing activities.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT TESTING

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