Zoppas Industries Group has just published its latest Sustainability Report, covering 2022. The report, which details the group’s environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance, covers activities at SIPA and ZIHET, a leader in heating element technologies.
Introducing the report, group chairman Gianfranco Zoppas says the group wants to play an important role on the path to sustainable development, “to deliver a better world to future generations. Stimulating innovative initiatives in the social and environmental field, enhancing experiences and skills, is part of our sustainable development strategy and we do so thanks to people, the key resources for the territory in which our company operates (…) We propose ourselves as major players in the ecological transition.”
The group’s primary challenge is to reach net zero by 2050, reducing greenhouse gas emissions in an extremely significant way already by 2025, Zoppas says. “On the energy front, we are developing a trajectory to 2025-2035 to become progressively independent of fossil fuels, both in electrical and thermal terms, through a combination of self-generation and energy-efficient systems.”
In 2022, SIPA has implemented its system for monitoring electricity consumption in its factories and important energy efficiency initiatives were carried out. Moreover, since 2021, all SIPA plants use electricity from renewable sources with guarantee of origin.
In 2022, electricity consumption at SIPA was reduced by almost 19% in relation to turnover, compared with the previous year. The reduction in natural gas consumption was even more impressive, at 22% in relation to turnover. Emissions of CO2 equivalents from SIPA plants in Italy fell by 16% in relation to turnover.
SIPA continues to develop technologies that make the PET processing equipment it produces more sustainable. For example, solutions have been developed to improve the production of preforms and bottles with high content of recycled material (rPET). Latest “Green Ovens” and the reuse of compressed air help reduce energy consumption, and lightweighting solutions reduce the quantity of virgin raw material needed.