One is to "accelerate digital development and build a digital China." Developing the digital economy is a strategic choice to accelerate industrial upgrading and achieve low-carbon green development.
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As a leading Chinese tire manufacturing firm, Linglong Tire has adopted a comprehensive framework to embrace the transition with the support from seven major systems: R&D management PLM/TDM, supply chain management ERP/SRM/WMS, smart factory MES/SCM, sales/after-sales/service system CRM/EDI, financial system SAP, organizational assurance, and management support BPM/BI. Linglong believes that sustainable and responsible business increases our ability to innovate and add value to the company. The company focuses on building Hubei, Jilin, and European factories and aims to transform them into pioneering bases for intelligent manufacturing. They will become a benchmark for high-end smart manufacturing and green supply chain systems and provide a solid foundation for green and low-carbon development.
Environmental Strategy
The environment is a critical component of Linglong’s company policy, and the environmental strategy focuses on making business more sustainable across all aspects of the value chain.
- Organizational Environmental Protection
Linglong strictly implements national and local environmental protection laws and regulations in project design, construction, and production. All projects put into production have established a company-level environmental protection committee, introduced environmental management system standards, and systematically managed environmental factors to achieve the purpose of pollution prevention and environmental protection.
To standardize, the company establishes and improves the internal environmental protection management system, defines the management objectives, and formulates and continuously optimizes and enhances the control standards and operation procedures of green product manufacturing, gas emission, solid waste management, and noise. The company and its subsidiaries have passed ISO14001:2015 environmental management system certification, and the Zhaoyuan factory has passed ISO50001:2018 energy management system certification.
- Climate Protection
Linglong is committed to contributing to tackling climate change. Firstly, by operating on an energy-efficient basis, standardizing waste management, and meeting emission standards, Linglong further repurposes the energy produced in the waste management process. For example, the company designs the steam pipeline of tire vulcanization tail gas in a unified way. And use the recovered secondary steam for raw material drying room, semi-finished product heating, staff bathhouse, workshop heating in winter, and production site cooling in summer.
Secondly, by developing products that help reduce CO2 emissions. The company aims to use raw materials as efficiently as possible and constantly innovate to create greener alternatives. For instance, the company actively expands the possibility of developing materials and focuses on research on low-pollution, low-consumption, and high-quality materials, such as bio-based materials, which are environmentally friendly, recyclable, and degradable. A series of innovative achievements in dandelion rubber, graphene tires, and 3D printing materials have been developed to help achieve the "dual decarbonization" goal. On October 16, 2021, Linglong Tire and Clintair signed a strategic cooperation agreement to plan tire retreading capacity in Jingmen, Changchun, and other factories, realize the recycling of carbon black in waste tires, and increase the recycling of waste tire resources. Maximize the value of tires, provide tire life cycle services, and empower the realization of low-carbon development.
- Product Responsibility
Linglong’s sustainability commitment to products covers their entire life cycle – from the raw materials used and product production to sales and subsequent recycling.
Linglong formulates a series of control standards and management processes for the material used in products and ensures the production of tires that meet environmental standards through clean production and safe supply chain development. All products meet customers' hazardous substance control standards or exporting countries and regions.
Linglong gradually strengthens the development of renewable and recyclable materials and their application in tire products, reduces the dependence on petroleum-based materials, and continuously promotes the research and development of recyclable, renewable, and degradable materials to minimize harm to the environment. In recent years, the company has reduced carbon emissions by establishing a green supply chain system and the application of environmentally friendly materials and degradable materials. It has continued to promote innovative research on the application of dandelion rubber, graphene tires, and 3D printing materials to help achieve the "dual decarbonization" goal. It is planned that the proportion of sustainable resources and renewable materials in tires will reach 35% in 2025 and 40% in 2030.
In 2015, the company established the "Dandelion Rubber Industry Technology Innovation Strategic Alliance" with more than 20 universities, research institutes, and rubber application enterprises, which is the third dandelion rubber organization in the world after PENRA in the United States and EU-PEARL in the European Union. The alliance has established thousands of acres of planting bases in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Shandong, Hainan, Gansu, and other places. It has built a "ton-level solvent extraction device" in Beijing, successfully producing dandelion rubber concept tires. The preliminary plan is to complete 10,000 mu of planting before 2025, to form a tire product scale with commercial value before 2030, and to form a healthy and sustainable development of the rubber grass industry chain. Linglong's exploration and development of dandelion rubber is significant for protecting tropical rainforests and biodiversity, expanding natural rubber supply channels, and reducing production costs and carbon emissions. The excellent cultivation characteristics of dandelion rubber grass will also improve the tens of millions of mu of desertified saline-alkali land in the Three Norths of my country, with significant ecological benefits.
Sustainable Governance
Linglong has ecological, social, and legal requirements for supplier selection and review. The company's suppliers and service providers must comply with the code of conduct, which encompasses requirements such as basic business ethics, anti-corruption, recyclable packaging, corporate social responsibility, and a certified quality management system. The company provides training programs with upstream and downstream firms, covering topics such as green environmental protection, decarbonization, and quality capabilities, cultivating supply capabilities, promoting long-term cooperation, and creating a competitive value chain. In 2018, we started to promote the green supply chain, and in 2021, 28 suppliers participated in the Linglong Tire green supply chain project.
In addition to the commitment of suppliers to comply with the selection, production materials suppliers are subject to review before initiating a supply relationship. The goal is to review the suppliers based on their environmental impact and energy management criteria.
Besides suppliers, Linglong considers clean production factors in the product and process design stage. Following the company's "7+5" strategy, Linglong has formulated a series of environmental protection application plans for different facilities, prioritizing low-energy consumption and high-automation production lines for new projects and gradually replacing existing projects with alternative methods. For instance, in 2021, the Changchun production base increased its investment in environmental protection treatment equipment. It adopted a new treatment process of "oil removal + filtration + activated carbon adsorption, desorption and catalytic combustion" to replace the aging treatment process. The company significantly improved the flue gas collection rate and reduced operating costs.
Social Responsibility
As a dedicated member of the global community, Linglong demonstrates a sustainable commitment to social issues. The company actively advocates low-carbon development and promotes popularizing social low-carbon concepts. The company has also cooperated with domestic and overseas colleges, universities, and research institutions to jointly study green and low-carbon technologies, promote low-carbon ideas, empower environmental protection with scientific research, and help environmental protection with actions.
In 2021, Linglong deepened its cooperation with VfL Wolfsburg, the Bundesliga, and became VfL Wolfsburg’s official partner of the "race to zero" event by the United Nations.
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