Bridgestone has a tyre manufacturing site in Pune, India, and it’s officially carbon neutral.

Now, they didn’t just wake up one day and decide to go green. This journey has been a long and winding road, and they’re not stopping anytime soon.

Bridgestone’s plant in Chakan, Pune, India, has achieved something pretty darn impressive. It’s been audited, poked, and prodded in May and June of 2023, and it passed with flying colours according to the international PAS 2060 standard. In simple terms, it means that for the year 2022, this place was officially carbon neutral for scopes 1 and 2 emissions.

But why should you care? Well, it’s all part of Bridgestone’s grand plan to become carbon neutral (scopes 1 and 2) globally by 2050. And they’re not twiddling their thumbs until then; they’ve also got their sights set on slashing CO2 emissions from their operations by a whopping 50% by 2030 compared to the 2011 benchmark.

This Pune manufacturing facility isn’t just any run-of-the-mill plant. It churns out over 4 million tyres every year, and over the years, it’s been on a mission to shrink its carbon footprint. How much, you ask? Well, they’ve managed to trim it down by a jaw-dropping 94%.

So, how did they do it? They’ve got solar panels soaking up the sun’s rays at the plant, and there’s a carbon-neutral biomass-based boiler plant in the mix. This uses biomass briquettes made from agricultural waste to keep things carbon-neutral. 

And here’s a cherry on top – they’ve offset 2,974 tons of CO2 emissions by buying Verified Carbon Standard credits from a solar photovoltaic project by Acme in India. This project is all about harnessing energy from solar panels and pumping it into regional power grids across several states. 

Bridgestone isn’t resting on its laurels either. As part of the PAS 2060 verification, the Pune site has committed to an action plan to further slash CO2 emissions over the next three years. 

As Koji Takagi, Chief Sustainability Officer at Bridgestone EMIA, puts it, “Globally Bridgestone is guided by a deep-rooted mission of ‘Serving Society with Superior Quality.”

They’re not just making tyres; they’re serving society with a side of sustainability. 

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