Assan Alüminyum invests in major sustainable expansions

Assan Alüminyum, a subsidiary of Kibar Holding and one of the 2 largest aluminium foil producers in Europe, expands further through a series of sustainable investments worth almost 100 million US dollars. The company strives to become more sustainable in environmental, social and governance (ESG) terms, while adopting the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) global sustainability guidelines as business principles.

In the first part of 2022, Assan Alüminyum successfully completed its on-site ASI Performance Standard audit, which was postponed due to travel restrictions posed by the pandemic, enabling the company’s flat-rolled aluminium production and recycling activities to be certified against global sustainability principles. ASI Performance Standards reflect a comprehensive sustainability framework, covering the whole aluminium value chain, providing companies with a guideline for how sustainability could be improved in the aluminium industry.

Strong Corporate Governance

Assan Alüminyum strives to become more sustainable in environmental, social and governance terms. Assan Alüminyum’s General Manager and Global Aluminium Foil Roller Initiative (GLAFRI) President Göksal Güngör explains: “As corporate governance is one of the main pillars of sustainability, we build a strong corporate governance structure at Assan Alüminyum. We are one of the first companies in our industry to become certified in ISO 31000 Risk Management, as well as ISO 22301 Business Continuity Management. We have a dedicated risk management team, managing our risks professionally, therefore making us more agile and resilient. During the pandemic, when many industries, as well as the global supply chains experienced major disruptions, we were able to observe that our strong corporate governance structure helped us pull through these unprecedented periods without any major interruptions. Our award-winning, end-to-end supply chain transformation project, Cast’n Roll had also recently been completed just before the pandemic began. The positive outcomes of this project also allowed us to create value for our customers, thanks to the improved flexibility and agility of our supply chain.”

The Challenges and Advantages of the Aluminium Industry

As it is the case in many different industries, the aluminium industry is also facing many challenges, such as increasing prices, due to the issues like the Russian-Ukranian conflict and supply-demand gap. While the negative impacts of global unrest is likely to be effective in global markets for a little while longer, the aluminium industry incorporates many advantages compared to other industries, which make it an irreplaceable material contributing positively to the transition to a circular economy. It is a sustainable product by nature, as it is 100% and infinitely recyclable. It is lightweight, therefore allowing for reduced carbon emissions in the transport sectors, it is impermeable, therefore reducing food waste and improving resource efficiency, it is highly conductive, therefore improving the energy efficiency of heat exchanger applications. Assan Alüminyum supplies flat-rolled aluminium to many different industries, such as automotive, packaging, consumer durables, HVAC and construction. With this sustainable raw-material input, these industries also become more environmentally sustainable through the products they produce.

Carbon Offsetting Through Renewable Energy Production

Göksal Güngör draws attention to the importance of sustainability, as he states, “As natural resources are depleting rapidly, energy and resource efficiency becomes more crucial every day. Sustainability is one of our core values at Assan Alüminyum, among reliability, flexibility and innovation. We aim to strengthen our sustainability muscles, through many activities, whether they relate to our day-to-day activities or corporate responsibility projects. Our renewable energy production facility is a major pillar in our environmental sustainability efforts. With the I-RECs (International Renewable Energy Certificate) we generate through our clean energy production, we are able to fully offset our scope 2 emissions.

Our energy team contributes significantly to the reduction of our carbon footprint by introducing new energy efficiency projects every year. Through the energy efficiency projects, we have completed in the last 6 years, we reduced an equivalent amount of carbon emissions to the planting of almost 2 million trees.

Our ‘Biodiversity Conservation Project’ also contributes to sustainability, as the loss of biodiversity is one of the leading causes for climate change. As we greatly value industry academia partnerships, we partnered up with Kocaeli University, where we managed to save the Amsonia orientalis plant from extinction. This year the project continues with the Pancatium maritimum plant. We are very happy with the positive impact this has on the ecosystem, as more plants are reintroduced into nature.”

Assan Alüminyum contributes to environmental and social sustainability through other corporate responsibility projects as well. The company raises environmental awareness by supporting a children’s theater to perform plays about recycling and forestation for primary school students in their local communities. Tree planting activities, in order to balance the impacts of customer events and the use of wooden pallets have also become common practice in the last few years.

Investing Further on Sustainable Expansion

On top of the 60 million US dollars that the company has already invested in the last few years in sustainable expansion, Assan Alüminyum’s new investment plans, projected to be completed in the year 2024, worth almost 100 million US dollars, are already underway. These investments include a wide variety of sustainable expansions, such as rolling oil recycling facility and new filtration systems for casting lines, the improvement of thin-gauge aluminium foil production capacity, digitalization projects and development of casting capabilities.

Energy efficiency is targeted to be improved through the highly efficient, modern thin strip rolling mill and 5 brand new casting lines. With a total number of 24 continuous-casting (CC) lines, Assan Alüminyum aims to have the largest CC capacity in all of Europe and America. The new rolling mill is not only going to reduce electrical consumption through new generation of AC motors and drive systems with regenerative abilities, but also going to enable improved automation and machine learning. As an extension of the project, the advanced exhaust air purification system will be installed on both new and old rolling mills, to blow the evaporating particles of the rolling oil through a filtration system. With this new investment, the total installed annual production capacity of the company will exceed 360,000 tons, allowing the company to focus on creating more value for its business partners.