BorgWarner publishes 2021 Sustainability Report
June 15, 2021
BorgWarner Inc., headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, USA, has released its 2021 Sustainability Report, ‘Evolving For All’, which details the company’s recent sustainability achievements and showcasing short- and long-term goals for environmental stewardship, social responsibility and governance.
“We create sustainable value by making mobility cleaner and more efficient, aligning the interests of our customers, shareholders and citizens of the planet, and enabling us to lead the electrification of the low carbon economy of the future,” stated Frédéric Lissalde, president and CEO, BorgWarner, Inc. “We also create high-quality jobs, promote a diverse, inclusive workforce and are close to achieving gender pay parity.”
The comprehensive report covers the following key elements:
- COVID-19 response In response to the pandemic, BorgWarner implemented numerous protocols and safety measures to help ensure the protection of its employees, including flexible hours and remote working. The company also established a Safe Restart Task Force to identify and disseminate return to work procedures, and it formed a Supply Chain Risk Council to guide the company in identifying potential risks to the company’s business. The company also donated $100,000 to the Business Roundtable’s Project Hope Campaign in the USA as well as other organisations that provided PPE to frontline healthcare workers.
- Environmental stewardship: Creating a cleaner, more energy-efficient world In 2020, the company earned 85% of its revenue from electric and emissions-reducing hybrid and combustion products. The strategic acquisition of Delphi Technologies expanded BorgWarner’s power electronics offerings and enhanced its goal of maintaining the majority of revenue from clean energy technologies. By 2030, BorgWarner estimates that it will receive 45% of its revenue from products for EVs. Additionally, the company expects combined R&D and capital spending for eProducts to be greater than $3 billion over the next five years, with eProducts approaching 50% of R&D spend before acquisitions by 2025. The company has committed to its operations being carbon neutral on scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2035, extending its goal to reduce carbon emissions relative to sales from 2015 to 2030 by 50% and energy use relative to sales by 37%. Over the last five years, BorgWarner has achieved a 17% reduction of scope 1 and scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions intensity from a 2015 baseline (28% for the company’s operations prior to the Delphi Technologies acquisition).
- Social responsibility: Living the BorgWarner beliefs The company’s five core beliefs – inclusion, integrity, excellence, responsibility and collaboration – were refreshed and reintroduced company-wide in 2020 to help employees better understand and embrace BorgWarner’s corporate culture and company values. BorgWarner’s unconscious bias awareness training was expanded across leadership teams in 2020 and will be rolled out to all employees this year. Among the company’s recent social responsibility undertakings, a third-party consultant was brought in to conduct an independent pay equity analysis in 2020 of the company’s legacy BorgWarner workforce. The global gender pay equity study showed that, on average, women received 98.7% of the compensation compared to men. The analysis also showed that in the US, minorities on average received 99.8%+ of compensation as compared to non-minorities. The company has committed to continuing to evaluate and address discrepancies related to pay equity and has an annual salary review process in place to fulfil this commitment. Nine of the company’s sites received the 2020 CEO Safety Excellence Award in 2020 for working one million hours and a minimum of twelve consecutive months without a recordable incident along with other safety performance measures. Additionally, BorgWarner participated in more than 444 charitable activities, with the company and its employees donating $2.8 million and 18,793 hours of their time.
- Governance: Partnering with and reporting to stakeholders In 2020, the company launched the BorgWarner Quality Award to further instil a quality culture and recognise excellence by creating healthy competition around quality performance amongst plants. The overall winner of the 2020 Quality Award was the plant in Changnyeong, South Korea. Additional recognition was given to plants in Tianjin, China, Ramos Arizpe, Mexico and Ithaca, New York, USA, all of which displayed outstanding performance across production quality, launch quality and warranty. In order to gauge suppliers’ current sustainability practices, the company is aiming to have at least 80% of its high-risk and high-impact suppliers complete a self-assessment questionnaire, which is audited by a third party. In addition to the survey, BorgWarner is putting together a holistic strategy surrounding supplier sustainability, with goals of better communicating its expectations, identifying and developing sustainability-related metrics, and updating its supplier manual and terms and conditions to reflect its updated requirements.
The report can be accessed in full via the company website.
