Episode 25: Infinitely Recyclable: How Aluminum is Contributing to the Circular Economy with Suzanne Lindsay-Walker from Novelis
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Aluminum is an infinitely recyclable material and an important part of the circular economy. In this episode, Tad and Julianna sit down with Suzanne Lindsay-Walker Vice President, Sustainability, for Novelis Inc., to discuss the type of products that Novelis’s aluminum ends up in, the life cycle benefits of aluminum versus other materials, how aluminum is contributing to the circular economy, Novelis’s closed loop system with Ford Motor Company and Ball, the key focus areas in Novelis’s sustainability strategy, the value of their GreenCircle Recycled Content certifications, and how Novelis empowers their employees to embrace sustainability.
Can you tell us more about the life cycle benefits of aluminum versus other materials?
“So first and foremost, everybody could and should know that aluminum is infinitely recyclable, right? It means that it can be recycled over and over and over again without losing any of its original performance properties. A fun fact that I love that I first learned when I got here was that 75% of the aluminum that has ever been recycled is still in use today, which is pretty phenomenal. Also from an energy perspective, when you recycle aluminum, it uses 95% less of the energy that would be required if you processed it from primary aluminum. So when you look at it from a life cycle perspective, there's a tremendous benefit in leveraging aluminum particularly when it's recycled. The recycling process allows us to recycle products like beverage cans and have them back on store shelves in as little as 60 days.
So to continue that process over and over and over again, is why we are becoming a material of a choice. We're actually seeing and enjoying the increased demand as a result of the sustainability attributes of recycled aluminum. We are the world's largest recycled aluminum. We recycled 82 billion used beverage cans last year. That's remarkable to me. Seeing more and more of how we can enable other customers like our automotive, particularly as we're going into EVs, it's a lightweighting opportunity and we're enabling them to get more out of their vehicles as well. So again, really, really excited about the opportunity that we have to continue to grow and do so in a sustainable way.”
are you seeing more interest from customers in terms of getting the aluminum back and going for higher recycled content materials, or where do you see that going in terms of continuing to drive the circularity of the aluminum?
“Yeah, that's a great question. Cause you're absolutely right. Customers are coming to us in all different sectors and saying, “How can we reduce the carbon of our products even more?” So, usually the first question is if they don't already have a closed loop production system with us, how might we do that? There are five key areas in our carbonization strategy, one of which is to maximize circularity and we can do that in two key ways. One again is through production scrap, where we have the world's largest with Ford at the moment and seeking other ways that we can engage other OEMs and also creating those closed loop systems.
So we get more of their production scrap back, but also importantly at the end of life. So, how do we increase the amount of the aluminum alloys that at the end of the day, when a car is scrapped, how can we get those back in a way that we can put them back into and truly close the loop? So, we've been investing in some really cool technology to enable that segregation. There was actually a recent press release where we announced a minor investment in a company called Sortera. That's gonna enable us to do just that. So, how do we get more end of life, automobile scrap back into products again, to increase recycling rate and to further reduce that carbon footprint.”
Novelis has six GreenCircle Certified Recycled Content certifications for various alloys. What are the drivers behind your decision to pursue third-party certification for some of those claims?
“Like we mentioned earlier, customers are interested in us being more and more transparent and we're committed to becoming more transparent. One way that we can do that is through third-party certification. Particularly the six alloys that you certify on our behalf are in three of our plants, one is in Richmond, VA, another one's in Davenport, IA, and Uhrichsville, OH. They produce a lot of the building and construction alloys for us. They're extremely high recycled content. Of the six alloys, I think the lowest one is a minimum of 78% and then a high of 99%. As we see LEED certification continuing to be more and more prevalent, the GreenCircle Certification is something that they accept and is a way to demonstrate that you have higher recycled content. So again, it's driven by our desire to provide transparent, validated claims when customers increasingly ask for them.”
how do you go about getting other people in your organization to embrace sustainability?
“It is something I think about on a daily basis. I've been doing this a long time and it depends on the kind of industry that you're in and the way with which you might tackle it. But at Novelis, I'm a little bit lucky in that. They've been on this journey for a long time before I even got there. So there's a lot of pride in our purpose shaping a sustainable world together that is brought to life every single day by each one of our employees and so the example with the three GreenCircle Certified plants that I mentioned, there's a lot of pride in producing products like that, but certainly we're trying to evolve and become a little bit more intentional in terms of the ways that we can bring people along in sustainability.
How do you meet employees where they're at? There may be a tremendous amount of knowledge and it's really more about bringing them as advocates and I call it spreading the gospel or, maybe it's someone who's like, “What's carbon?” So, how do we make sure that we meet people where they're at, so there's the appropriate kind of not just training, but there has to be engagement efforts as well. How do you allow or create the space for people to participate and engage? Things like having the global dashboard. We're a very performance oriented company. We're a lot of technical and engineering type folks. So, we like numbers and we like seeing progress numbers. We created a dashboard that everyone at Novelis has the opportunity to take a peak at and see what’s trending. But how do we connect, not just that side of it, but the hearts and minds as well. So I'm excited because I'm proposing a full sort of suite of engagement and education opportunities over the next 24 months that are really gonna drive that so that we can further embed it and have folks embrace it. I'm excited about it.”
ABOUT SUZANNE LINDSAY-WALKER
Suzanne Lindsay-Walker is Vice President, Sustainability, for Novelis Inc. In this role, Suzanne leads the development and implementation of the company’s global sustainability strategy and vision to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. She is also responsible for Novelis’ Corporate Social Responsibility efforts.
Suzanne joined Novelis in May 2021. Prior to Novelis, Suzanne was the Chief Sustainability Officer and Vice President of Environmental Affairs for UPS. In this position, she was responsible for driving solutions and delivering results to achieve UPS’s sustainability goals, as well as developing the company’s forward-looking sustainability strategy.
Before UPS, Suzanne held positions of increasing responsibility in sustainability at Brambles USA, The Kroger Co. and PetSmart. She began her career as a civil engineer, focused on land development for retail and commercial clients.
Suzanne holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan.
