The Suppliers Partnership for the Environment (SP) 2022 Awards Program is designed to recognize and raise awareness of environmental sustainability successes within the automotive supply chain, while promoting knowledge sharing and transfer of proven solutions across the automotive industry.

SP’s Award Categories for 2022 include,

  • Demonstrating Environmental Innovation in the Manufacturing Process (Company). This award recognizes companies that demonstrate outstanding innovation in an advanced manufacturing process or technology leading to significant environmental and economic impact within the global automotive supply chain.
  • Creativity in Implementing Sustainable Practices (Company). This award recognizes companies that demonstrate remarkable creativity in implementing environmental sustainability programs and practices within the global automotive supply chain.
  • Community Impact (Company). This award recognizes companies who strive to extend the positive impacts of their sustainability efforts to local communities and organizations outside the automotive industry through outreach and education.
  • Shining Star (Individual). This award recognizes and celebrates individual emerging sustainability leaders within the SP membership for their exemplary efforts in developing and improving environmental sustainability programs, as well as their leadership and engagement in SP.

A selection committee of environmental sustainability leaders from SP OEM member companies reviewed and scored all qualified applications received before this year’s August submission deadline. The winning entries were announced in an SP Awards Ceremony on October 27, 2022 in Lexington, Kentucky as part of SP’s 4th Quarter Membership Meeting.

To learn more about last year’s 2021 SP Award winners, please click here.


2022 Award Winners

► 2022 SP Community Impact Award: Lavergne for its Ocean-bound Plastic Recycling Initiative in Haiti.

► 2022 SP Creativity in Implementing Sustainable Practices Award: Solvay for its Sustainable Manufacturing of a Bio-Based Polymer program.

► 2022 SP Demonstrating Environmental Innovation in the Manufacturing Process Award: Henkel for its Next Generation Metal Pretreatment Process.

► 2022 SP Shining Star Award: Bridget Grewal of Magna International for her vision and leadership in promoting industry collaboration to minimize automotive packaging waste.

Read the press release announcing the 2022 winners here.


2022 Nominees

We are pleased to share the following nominees under consideration for recognition with a 2022 SP Award.


Demonstrating Environmental Innovation in the Manufacturing Process (Company). This award recognizes companies that demonstrate outstanding innovation in an advanced manufacturing process or technology leading to significant environmental and economic impact within the global automotive supply chain.

Nominees for the 2022 Award include:

  • Biosynthetic Technologies — Estolides: A Bioderived Synthetic Base Oil. “Estolides were commercialized in 2019 and offer the industry a viable substitute for petroleum base oils in the lubricant industry minimizing the impact of oil spills on the environment. Estolides now offer a high performance alternative to petroleum products, providing a sound alternative allowing for more environmentally friendly alternatives choices in the future.”
  • Doug Brown Packaging Products — Korrvu Headlamp Suspension Pack. “As automotive manufacturers continue to develop innovative headlamps for their vehicles, these components have a potential to be a high value claim item if damaged. There is a lot of handling of these items as they travel through distribution networks, arriving at dealerships to repair damaged vehicles as well as being available through certified resellers. We’ve team up with Sealed Air Corp. to develop a Korrvu roll up suspension package program for Ford Motor Company and Stellantis. Our sustainable design has both decreased the damage to almost zero dollars and replaced over 1 million pounds of foam packaging to our landfills.”
  • Henkel — PALLUMINA Process on 2021 Toyota Tacoma & Tundra. “This award submission is related to the conversion of Toyota’s San Antonio, Texas facility from its use of the zinc phosphate process to the PALLUMINA Thin Film process for metal pretreatment on the 2021 Toyota Tacoma and Tundra. Compared to the traditional zinc phosphate metal pretreatment process – considered the pretreatment standard in the automotive industry for many decades – the PALLUMINA Thin Film process offers high corrosion performance across all major metals, while significantly contributing to environmental advancements: Eliminates use of heavy metal phosphates (zinc phosphate, nickel phosphate, manganese phosphate); Provides up to 90% reduction in sludge generation; and, Contributes reduction in the use of water”
  • ORBIS — ORBIS Corporation’s With the Ocean in Mind Packaging Program. “Reusable packaging manufacturer ORBIS Corporation’s Ocean in Mind packaging initiative focuses on recovering and repurposing single-use plastic waste found on coastlines into supply chain packaging. By definition, this is plastic waste recovered within 32 miles from a coastline and typically consists of single-use consumer packaging waste, including beverage packaging, shampoo bottles, plastic bags, etc. With this new material stream, recovered coastline plastic waste is blended with other materials during the ORBIS manufacturing process to create reusable plastic containers and pallets. This material recovery offers a new stream of recycled content for reusable plastic packaging that reduces waste, conserves natural coastlines and supports economies in developing coastline communities in countries like Haiti, Egypt, Philippines, Indonesia and Brazil.”
  • Magna International — Innovations in Casting. “Seeking ways to embed sustainability into six massive high-pressure diecasting machines at the Magna Cosma plant that produce aluminum auto parts Magna installed a lithium-bromide chiller. This machine reuses heat gas and converts hot water from the manufacturing process into cooling water that can be used for other casting processes. In addition to its sustainability benefits, this technology had the potential to make diecasting operations more efficient.”
  • Magna International — Sustainability Solution: ‘Casting a Vote for the Future’. “Simply put, the winning approach improves a factory’s overall performance by using a clean-tech machine that can be a great fit for many facilities. The machine, a regenerative thermal oxidizer or RTO, is designed to efficiently destroy emissions while creating sustainability through the re-use of heat generated in the process. At the Wuhu division, the recovered waste heat replaces 3,000 tons of steam heat a year on the paint line, saving money and reducing carbon emissions by 600 metric tons a year.”
  • Pirelli Tire NA — FSC® Certified tires. “Pirelli’s focus on sustainable sourcing of natural rubber includes a detailed policy, implementation manual for suppliers, annual roadmap and reporting on progress, and chain-of-custody certification of rubber from the plantation to our factory in Rome, Georgia USA. The factory in Rome has all agricultural products (rubber and rayon) certified according to the Forest Stewardship Council’s criteria and annual audit process. It is the only tire manufacturing plant in the world to achieve the certification. Pirelli promotes awareness through a photography project depicting rubber tapping and ecosystems. Pirelli also partners with one of our suppliers, Kirana Megatara, to teach sustainable farming practices, run an annual tapping competition in Indonesia, and provide scholarships for farmers’ children to attend school.”




Creativity in Implementing Sustainable Practices (Company). This award recognizes companies that demonstrate remarkable creativity in implementing environmental sustainability programs and practices within the global automotive supply chain.

Nominees for the 2022 Award include:

  • Manufacture 2030 — Minimizing environmental impacts and boosting supplier efficiency across a mutual supply base with two leading OEMs. ” With the help of Manufacture 2030, two leading brands were able to use a phased approach to onboard an initial number of approximately 350 automotive facilities, with the total number of engaged suppliers growing year on year. Manufacture 2030’s platform and service enabled the OEMs to measure, manage and reduce supply chain emissions via a climate action program, resulting in notable savings in water, waste, and capital expenditure, and more than 8,300 best-practice improvement actions from the M2030 platform having already been adopted. In addition, the ability within the platform for suppliers to submit data to mutual supply chain owners saved the suppliers time and allowed them to focus on implementing emissions reduction processes.”
  • NexTiles — NexTiles Insulation Manufacturing. “This project uses textile waste from Detroit’s automotive manufacturing sector as feedstock for a circular economy building insulation material. As this pre-consumer textile scrap would otherwise be landfilled, NexTiles simultaneously reduces the environmental impacts of landfill waste while providing a local, energy efficient building insulation. To remain economically viable and sustainable, we receive our feedstock at no cost and sell low-dust, eco-friendly building insulation to contractors and green builders. As NexTiles has already established itself as a Detroit-based recycler, with clients that pay for textile waste collection services, we have the infrastructure to collect and process a wider range of automotive materials.”
  • Solvay — Sustainable Manufacturing of a Bio-Based Polymer. “Solvay is committed to providing sustainable solutions to the automotive supply chain. As a tier 2/3 raw material supplier of specialty polymers, Solvay is working to reduce its carbon footprint so that they entire carbon footprint across the automotive industry can be reduced.  Solvay produces several products at their Augusta, Georgia manufacturing facility including Amodel® PPA. In order to be a more sustainable supplier, Solvay has worked to address energy, waste, and water usage at the manufacturing plant. The PPA resin made in our Augusta, Georgia manufacturing site uses 100 % renewable electricity. Solvay recently developed a brand new high performance partially bio-based polyphthalamide(PPA) called Amodel® BIOS PPA to meet several new challenges in the automotive market.”



Community Impact (Company). This award recognizes companies who strive to extend the positive impacts of their sustainability efforts to local communities and organizations outside the automotive industry through outreach and education.

Nominees for the 2022 Award include:

  • Lavergne — Ocean-bound Plastic Recycling Initiative Makes a Difference in Haiti. “A key Lavergne initiative that has made a positive community impact is our ocean-bound plastic project which supports impoverished communities in Haiti and helps divert plastic waste from reaching our oceans. Lavergne Haiti is supporting 1,200 collectors that sell plastic waste to 77 collection centers throughout the country by buying that plastic and transforming it into a recycled plastic resin that can be used as raw material in the manufacturing of new products such as consumer electronics and automotive parts. Lavergne has built a washing line, with an annual capacity of 11,300 metric tons (25 million pounds), in Haiti to treat the ocean-bound plastics (PET, PP, and HDPE). The washing line thoroughly cleans and shreds the material, preparing the material for shipping to our North American plant where it will become recycled plastic pellets.
  • Bocar Group — Bocar Environmental Week. “In order to improve the awareness of the employees and their families about Environmental concerns, Bocar Group prepares an environmental week with the participation in different activities along the facilities. The activities includes: plant +610 trees in 2 different locations in Mexico with environmental agencies with participation of family members; conferences of Carbon Footprint, Water initiatives, ODS; also contests named “3R´s” to identify opportunities to improve environmental performance in the facilities.”



Shining Star (Individual). This award recognizes and celebrates individual emerging sustainability leaders within SP member companies for their exemplary efforts in developing and improving environmental sustainability programs, as well as their leadership and engagement in SP.

The recipient of the 2022 Shining Star Award will be announced on October 27.



Acknowledgements

SP would like to acknowledge and thank the member volunteers that contributed to the development and success of this year’s awards program, including awards program co-chairs Vickie Lewis (VMX International) and Bob Crawford (GWT Insight), and the award selection committee members Al Johnston (Stellantis), Anthony Senatore (Ford Motor Company), Phil Cozad (Honda Development & Manufacturing America), Reeshemah Howard (General Motors), and Kevin Butt (Toyota Motor North America).

Questions

Please contact us at info@supplierspartnership.org with any questions on the SP Awards program.

 

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