Boeing Aerostructures Australia’s efforts to promote sustainable aerospace manufacturing have been awarded with the 2020 Sustainability Leadership Award from the United States National Association of Manufacturers.

The award was in recognition of Boeing Australia’s achievements in the recycling of more than 76 tons of aerospace-grade carbon fibre. The recycling endeavour, achieve in partnership with UK-based ELG Carbon Fibre, saw scrap materials from Boeing manufacturing sites collected and sent to ELG to be treated to remove binding agents. The result of this process is clean material that can then be sold to third parties to make products such as electronic accessories and automotive equipment.

“As Australia’s largest aerospace manufacturer, we have a responsibility to our employees and our community to continuously identify ways to minimise environmental impact while we produce state-of-the-art product parts for our commercial programs,” said Jose Garza, Managing Director of Boeing Aerostructures Australia. “The Australian manufacturing environment has experienced some extraordinary challenges and now, more than ever, we need to look to sustainable practices to guide our future.”

The Sustainability Leadership Award recognises what Boeing has done to embrace global processes to achieve several environmental goals by 2025, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25%; water use and solid waste to landfill by 20%; energy use by 10%; and hazardous waste at worksites by 5%.

“Boeing is demonstrating that you can be environmentally sustainable in a cost-effective way,” said Bryan Scott, Vice-President of Environment, Health and Safety at Boeing. “We are the largest consumer of aerospace-grade composite, and the only company able to recycle 100% of it.”

Boeing Australia designs, tests, certifies and manufactures advanced structures for commercial aeroplanes. As a Tier 1 partner to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner program, Boeing Australia is the sole source supplier of 787 moveable trailing edges, comprising an inboard flap, flaperon, outboard flap and aileron.