Goodyear strategy delivers 10-fold increase in renewable energy use

Akron, Ohio – Goodyear is progressing its sustainability ambitions through a series of measures, including lower energy and water consumption.

In 2023, the US group increased the share of renewable electricity across its global manufacturing operations to 34%, compared to 3% in 2019.

The achievement is in line with a 2040 goal of moving all manufacturing operations and processes to renewable energy, said the tire major 27 June.

Goodyear has also defined a “mid-term goal” of 100% renewable electricity in manufacturing operations by 2030, said the its 2022 sustainability report.

The group has created a cross-functional team within its manufacturing, global engineering, procurement and sustainability functions to deleiver this goal.

Goodyear is also investigating how to “significantly reduce the direct emissions from our operations by switching fuels to renewable options,” it added.

With much of the work ‘still developing’, Goodyear is also looking at opportunities to electrify processes, as a substitute for steam.

With the rollout of the energy optimisation programme, Goodyear reduced 'absolute GHG emissions' by 15% compared to 2019, while improving energy efficiency by 2.3%.

In 2021, Goodyear announced that it would procure 100% renewable electricity for all our facilities across Europe, Middle East and Africa by the end of 2022.

By purchasing nearly 800K MWh of renewable electricity, Goodyear said it had eliminated nearly 400K tonnes of CO2 emissions annually from the company’s carbon footprint.

The group's plants in France, Germany, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovenia, Serbia, South Africa, Turkey, The Netherlands and UK now operate with renewable electricity.

In terms of water management, Goodyear said its tire production technology is “not a water-intensive process” and primarily uses the resource for cooling and sanitary purposes.

With the integration of Cooper Tire, Goodyear set itself a goal of reducing water consumption by 30% by 2030, compared to a 2020 baseline.

Closed-loop cooling systems, onsite treatment plants and evaporative cooling now capture process water & steam condensate to lower water consumption.

In 2022, the group said it reduced water consumption by 19% compared to two years before.