Turning Climate Action Into Opportunity

Mytilineos, one of Greece’s biggest companies—active in energy, infrastructure, construction and metallurgy around the world—is entering a new era with its plan to become net zero by 2050.

As the world seeks to decarbonize the global economy, zero has become the most important number. The U.S.’ recent decision to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement came with a $2 trillion clean-energy investment pledge and a net-zero emissions deadline of 2050.

The direction of travel is clear. The timeline of President Biden’s plan is aligned with Japan’s and South Korea’s net-zero pledges. The European Union aims to achieve net zero in the same year by investing $584 billion in a green recovery. While China, the world’s largest emitter of CO2, needs another decade to reach net zero. In 2021, the year of the U.N.'s COP26 climate conference, 126 countries that account for 51% of global carbon emissions have set decarbonization goals.

With net zero as a global priority, companies around the world have to transform the way they operate. Climate change initiatives such as the RE100 and the CDP have seen hundreds of corporations and investors commit themselves to a net-zero future.

Some businesses pledged to create a more sustainable future long before Biden arrived in the White House. Mytilineos, a Greece-based company with interests in a few hard-to-abate sectors such as metallurgy and power generation, as well as infrastructure and construction, has had an ESG strategy in place for a number of years. Since aligning its policies with a number of protocols and initiatives, including the U.N.’s Global Compact on corporate responsibility in 2008 and the Sustainable Development Goals in 2017, the company has prospered.

Despite the economic struggles in its home country and more recent challenges created by the pandemic, Mytilineos, according to Bloomberg Intelligence, “has established a lead position among EPC contractors for solar energy and energy storage projects,” with recent successes in projects across Europe and in Australia, Chile, and Kazakhstan. The company already derives one-fifth of its revenues from sustainable activities including developing and operating renewable energy projects, and aluminum recycling.

The company aims to maintain a leading position with its latest plan to reduce its emissions by at least 30% of 2019 levels by 2030, and to reach net zero by 2050. According to Mytilineos, these commitments make it the first metals group in the European Union to announce such a strategy, and one of the first Greek companies to do so.

Aluminum is one of the best places to start. It has one of the biggest carbon footprints of any sector, with an average of 11.5 tons of CO2 produced per ton of metal. Mytilineos is committed to becoming a global benchmark for green metallurgy by cutting its emissions to three tons of CO2 per ton of aluminum produced by 2030. It also plans to take a leading role in decarbonizing Greece’s energy mix.

Within the overall objective, a number of business units have their own targets. The Sustainable Engineering Solutions (SES) and Renewables and Storage Development (RSD) business units aim to hit net zero by 2030, while its metallurgy operations are expected to cut absolute emissions by 65% and relative emissions by 75% by the end of the decade. The company also aims to halve emissions in its Power and Gas unit through the construction of renewable energy projects.

Mytilineos plans to grow its SES and RSD revenue three-fold over the next decade by focusing on renewable power, energy efficiency and energy storage; waste management facilities; and developing groundbreaking technologies, including “green” hydrogen. In addition, the company plans to use more renewable energy within its own operations, electrifying heating and transport, as well as implementing energy-efficiency options in construction and aluminum production.

In 2020, Mytilineos accelerated its restructuring through its newly established business units, focusing on the goals of energy transition and sustainability. RSD will be the driving force of the company’s performance in the future, as it sees a very strong appetite for such projects all around the world, while placing climate action at its core.

“It is important that we act and contribute to the global and national effort to tackle climate change,” says Mytilineos Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Evangelos Mytilineos.

“Our strategic priorities focus on our commitment to reducing our environmental footprint through innovative and responsible sustainable practices and measurable results, but also on adopting new methods that strengthen our commitment to the transparency of our corporate governance,” he adds.

“So we become pioneers, as we become a company that leads the way for a greener and more environmentally friendly industry. The industry of tomorrow, based on the ESG performance indicators for the Environment, Society and Governance.”