Environment
Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Amphenol is acting to reduce our operational energy use and minimize our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions through the application of lean production processes and capital investments in energy-saving equipment, which have allowed us to reduce our Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions intensity. Our renewable energy strategy and GHG reduction efforts led to a have led to a 18% decrease in our revenue-normalized Scope 1 and 2 (market-based) emissions compared to 2021. As a result, we remain on track to achieving our goal of reducing our Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions intensity by 15% by 2025.
The use of renewable energy is an important part of our GHG emissions reduction strategy. Over the past few years, the renewable electricity portion of our total energy purchased has increased. We plan to further expand our use of renewable energy in our facilities as we work toward our goal of increasing our use of renewable energy to 50% by 2030.
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Reducing our Carbon Footprint
Our global facilities continue to support our emissions reduction goals through proactive and innovative actions that reduce their environmental footprint and conserve resources, while at the same time helping our facilities save on energy costs. To support these goals, several Amphenol facilities have installed on-site solar panels to increase their renewable electricity consumption and decrease their dependency on fossil fuels. These installations have helped provide a continuous, stable and clean source of energy for their facilities. In addition, our successful solar installments at some facilities have inspired other Amphenol businesses to consider increasing their renewable energy consumption.
Water Use
Amphenol’s manufacturing processes do not require a significant amount of water, however we do strive to be as responsible as possible with the water we use. In order to reduce our overall water usage, we pursue water optimization projects across our facilities and have invested in systems to reuse and reclaim our wastewater. Through our continued actions and investments, we were able to reduce our water withdrawal intensity by 5% in 2023 versus the prior year. Since 2017, our actions have resulted in our water withdrawal intensity declining by 37%, a 7% compound annual reduction over this six-year period.
We plan to continue to explore new opportunities for improvement in our water usage across our global footprint. To support our commitment, we have set a goal under SDG 6.4 Clean Water and Sanitation. By the end of 2030, Amphenol will reduce total water withdrawal of our top 20 facilities by 15% versus 2021 levels.
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Water Reuse in Action
Amphenol is committed to optimizing water use and reuse efforts in our water intensive processes. As one example, the team at our FCI Connectors facility in Singapore took action to reduce our water usage after observing a surge in water demand and consumption during 2022. The surge in demand at the facility was related to newly added water-intensive uses like plating processes, scrubbers and cooling towers. In July 2023, FCI implemented a new water initiative, incorporating a dedicated pipeline to deliver reclaimed water directly to the plant’s plating processes, scrubbers and cooling towers. The project has led to a 39% reduction in water consumption at the site since implementation and is expected to reduce the facility’s water consumption by up to 50% by 2025.
Waste Disposal
Limiting our use of resources and minimizing our waste remain a core component of Amphenol’s operational management culture. Our operations employ a number of methods to limit our waste, with some examples including utilizing recycled packaging for connectors, regrinding thermoplastics as appropriate to supplement virgin material feedstocks, composting organic material from our employee cafeterias and reducing our paper usage. As a result of our efforts, we were able to reuse, recycle or recover 71% of our total waste in 2023. We will continue to look for new ways to minimize our material use as we work to further reduce our waste production and deliver more sustainable products to our customers.
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Reducing our Waste
In addition to the actions we have taken to reduce the waste produced from our factories, our teams are also working to reduce the impact of our product packaging. As one example, our Automotive Connection Systems facility in Changzhou, China partnered with their supplier to implement an innovative solution in their packaging process to encourage recyclability and reusability. To help promote a more circular economy, the facility has implemented reusable plastic packaging trays. Once used in the facility, the trays are returned to the supplier and used again in the next shipment of raw materials. The use of these trays extends the lifecycle of our packaging and helps promote circular economy principles within our operations and throughout our value chain.