First carbon neutral tyre manufacturing site for Bridgestone

Bridgestone has announced its first tyre manufacturing site to be verified as carbon neutral (scopes 1 and 2).

The plant at Chakan in Pune, India (pictured), was audited in May and June 2023, and was subsequently verified according to the international PAS 2060 standard for 2022 by global assurance partner, LRQA.

Bridgestone says the certification marks an important milestone in its efforts to decarbonise its manufacturing capacity, towards the global target of carbon neutrality (Scope 1 and 2) by 2050 and a 50 per cent reduction of CO2 emissions from its operations by 2030 versus the 2011 benchmark.

Bridgestone’s Pune manufacturing facility produces more than four million tyres per year. Over the years, Bridgestone says the site has reduced its total carbon footprint by 94 per cent, through a number of measures. These include solar panels at the plant and a carbon neutral biomass-based boiler plant which uses carbon neutral biomass briquettes made from agricultural waste.

A total of 2,974 tons of CO2 emissions at the site are offset via Bridgestone India’s purchase of Verified Carbon Standard credits from a bundled solar photovoltaic project by Acme, India.

The project is designed to generate energy from solar panels that will be exported to the regional power grids in the Telangana, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan states in India.

As part of the PAS 2060 verification, the site has committed to a further CO2 reduction plan for the next three years.