Michelin

Michelin  is a tyre manufacturer based in Clermont-Ferrand in the Auvergne région of France. It is one of the two largest tyre manufacturers in the world. Most companies identify the new Michelin Energy tire, introduced in the early 1980s. It is also notable for its Red and Green travel guides, its roadmaps, the Michelin stars that the Red Guide awards to restaurants for their cooking, and for its company mascot Bibendum, colloquially known as the Michelin Man.

Among Michelin's numerous inventions, there is the removable tyre, the « pneurail » (a tyre for trains made to run on rails) and the radial tyre technology now used in modern "green tyres" that reduce fuel consumption.

Michelin Environmental Statement:

Michelin Tyre Plc recognises that a strong commitment to environmental issues is crucial and also makes good business sense. The Company uses electricity to power its manufacturing process and gas fired boilers to generate steam for vulcanisation. These impact the environment by depleting non-renewable fossil fuels and the combustion emissions lead to global warming.

Since 1998 the Company has reduced its energy use at the Dundee plant by 41 per cent and we currently generate around 25 per cent of our electricity from renewable sources through our wind turbines. The site has a professional environmental team and an energy manager to constantly drive this progress and they are engaged in a variety of energy-efficiency projects including new air compressors, which save up to 20 per cent over previous models, to further improve environmental performance and make a significant reduction in operating costs. We are also investigating possibilities for other renewable energy sources including wind turbines at our truck tyre plant in Ballymena in Northern Ireland.

Michelin is part of the EU- Emissions Trading Scheme, which is a cornerstone in the fight against climate change. It is the first international trading system for CO2 emissions in the world. The aim of the EU ETS is to help EU Member States achieve compliance with their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. Each phase of this scheme includes a reduction in the CO2 emissions allocations for manufacturing sites, including Dundee. The current phase runs from 2008-2012.

The Company has an ongoing campaign to encourage all employees to spot energy wastage in the form of air/ steam leaks, poor use of light/heat, problems with machinery etc. The new scheme has already identified many (often simple and cheap) ways of improving energy-efficiency.

To monitor its environmental performance the Company uses the Michelin Environmental Footprint (MEF) to measure key environmental impacts of waste generation and recycling, use of water, energy consumption, volatile organic solvent emissions and CO2 emissions. Michelin has made a public commitment to reduce these indicators by 20 per cent between 2005 and 2011.