Hear from our CEO and CSO about our Green Lights Strategy and how it incorporates What We Do
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Our progress
in 2024
Our Green Lights Strategy outlines four strategic pillars for our organization. In this Sustainability Report, we communicate on our progress toward our 2030 Goals and our material topics that are relevant to our sustainability work. Read more about some of the key events and results that defined 2024 below.
Business with Impact
2024 was a dynamic year with key developments and measured growth for our business. We have made significant progress in integrating sustainability into our core business operations while maintaining financial stability despite external challenges. A key milestone was the launch of our Green Lights Strategy, which brought our sustainability and business goals together in one single, integrated strategy and introduced an updated vision, purpose and promise for Beckers. As part of this shift, we appointed our first Chief Sustainability Officer, reinforcing our commitment to conducting Business with Impact.
Driving growth amid challenges
Despite market challenges such as a slowdown in the automotive sector and economic uncertainties in China, 2024 was a positive year for our business. A stable construction sector and proactive strategies ensured resilience.
Innovation and sustainability remain central to our progress. With our FutureLab, we are advancing coatings and solutions with improved sustainability performance to meet the growing market demand. As the first coil coatings company to set long-term emissions reduction targets with the SBTi in line with reaching net-zero by 2050, we demonstrated leadership in the industry. Our near-term science-based emissions reduction targets challenge us to partner with others in our industry to optimize growth while reducing our environmental impact.
Read more about our achievements in our other three strategic areas – Products with Impact, People with Impact and Operations with Impact – through the lens of What We Do.
By integrating our sustainability and business strategies, we are well-positioned to drive both long-term business success and progress toward our 2030 Goals in each of our four strategic pillars.
“It’s all about getting ambition into action.”
WHAT
– Products with Impact
Net-sustainable sales
We want to increase our sales of products that reduce our impact on the planet.
- Overall, product sales from our Beckers Sustainability Index (BSI) Achiever class increased from 41% to 50%.
- One concrete example, was how we collaborated with Scandinavian customers led to the introduction of renewable carbon materials into our formulations.
Net-sustainable innovation
Our ambition is not only to sell more sustainable products, but to continuously improve our products for the future.
- We enhanced our Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) capabilities during the year to improve how we measure our carbon footprint.
- We inaugurated FutureLab, our state-of-the-art research hub in Liverpool, UK, designed to foster creativity and collaboration.
Products in Concern class
We aim to phase out all our products in the BSI Concern class and therefore work toward 0% of our sales deriving from this category.
- 6% of our sales derived from products in the BSI Concern class, down from 7% in 2023.
- We completed the first stage of our Sustainability Sales School program, with all sites receiving training to enhance their engagement in sustainability discussions with customers.
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WE
– People with Impact
Female employees
We are working to make our company an inviting place for people of all backgrounds, starting with gender diversity.
- 28% female employees
- 30% female management positions
- 31% female new hires
We made progress on our 2030 gender diversity target in 2024. We focused on improving our employee hiring practices, increasing awareness of gender pay gaps and adapting roles at our production sites to be more inclusive for women. These topics were explored during the rollout of our Diversity@Operations workshops, which were conducted at 13 of our sites.
Zero accidents
We strive to achieve zero accidents and ensure a safe place to work.
- Our Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate (TRIFR) increased from 2 to 5 due to various factors, including a fire, minor incidents, and ergonomic challenges.
- We conducted 21 internal safety audits focused on fire safety along with fire-safety focused training sessions.
Employee engagement
We promote an engaging, motivating and vibrant place to work.
- We conduct employee engagement surveys to help us create better workplaces every second year. The next survey will be in 2025.
- Following up on our last engagement survey, we focused on ensuring that all countries and teams identified improvement actions. By the end of 2024, 96% of our teams completed their planned actions.
Do
– Operations with Impact
Energy
We drive energy efficiency and a renewable energy transition plan, while phasing out fossil fuels.
- 66% of our energy was sourced from renewable sources in 2024 – an increase from 58% in 2023.
- Our total energy use increased slightly by 0.35% compared to 2023, despite a 4% increase in products produced.
- We increased our use of renewable fuel from 19 MWh last year to 1,455 MWh this year—a nearly 74-fold increase.
Waste
We aim to promote circularity in our production by minimizing the waste we send to landfill and incineration, irrespective of production volumes, while fostering internal and external solutions for reuse and recycling.
- Total waste decreased by 33% from 9,662 metric tons to 6,463 metric tons in 2024.
- Landfilled: 74 metric tons (1%) of total waste.
- Incinerated (Total): 2,940 metric tons (46%)
- With heat recovery: 2,684 metric tons (42% of total waste)
- Without heat recovery: 256 metric tons (4% of total waste)
- Recycled or Reused: 3,449 metric tons (53%) of total waste.
Excluding the waste from the fire incident in 2023, we continued our trend of decreasing total waste by 1% in 2024 compared to the previous year.
Sourcing
Through continuous learning and improvement, we further developed our suppliers collaboration and engagement.
- We surpassed our 2030 target to have 85% of our suppliers assessed and approved by EcoVadis (based on spend) by approving 87.9% of our suppliers in 2024.
- Three supplier audits were conducted in 2024.
