“We’ve been steadily working towards our 2025 goal of 100 percent renewable electricity,” stated Blaise Porter, Sims Limited’s group director of sustainability and social responsibility.

“Our sites in Chicago have used renewable electricity for some time and our facilities in New Jersey, including our largest site at Jersey City, made the switch in 2022. With our most recent transaction for Green e-certified electricity consumption at all North American sites, all Sims Metal, Sims Lifecycle Services and Richmond Steel Recycling operations will be matched with certified renewable electricity.”

Certified renewable energy schemes match on an annual basis the electricity Sims consumes from the grid with electricity produced from North American renewable sources, such as wind and solar farms. Sims Limited can claim market-based Scope 2 electricity emissions as zero*, as the company moves to be a global net-zero emissions business by 2050. Sims Metal has also invested in on-site solar panels as part of achieving this goal.

Sims Metal circular economy operations in North America use more than 100,000MWh of electricity each year, the equivalent of around 9,000 homes. Using 100% renewable electricity at all operations will reduce Sims Metal emissions by more than 27,000 tonnes compared to FY20 levels. “You’d need to switch more than a million light globes to LEDs to get that same reduction” explains Porter.

“Moving to renewable electricity is a critical part of our decarbonisation plans, especially as we move towards more electric equipment in our yards” said Porter. “North America now joins all Sims Limited sites in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, India and Europe in supporting 100% renewable electricity”.

Learn more about sustainability at Sims Limited.

*Using the market-based reporting methodology as per the GHG Protocol’s Scope 2 Standards.

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Monterey Road is a major thoroughfare in California’s Silicon Valley that runs from the town of Gilroy northward to San Jose. The Sims Metal San Jose site occupies a large area of frontage along the corridor, which acts as a gateway to the downtown area. In 2016, Sims Metal engaged with a San Jose city council member and the city’s chief of staff to understand issues affecting the community, which ranged from illegal dumping to services for unhoused people.

“We started with site tours and morphed into introductions to some of the community leaders and businesses in the area,” said Jill Rodby, public/government relations manager for the Western United States. “With their support, I started The Monterey Corridor Business Association, an informal group that provides a platform for our businesses to stay aware of, and advocate for, best solutions to the problems that challenge our business community.”

The group immediately became a useful connection for city officials to meet and work with businesses in the corridor. Regular lunch meetings were hosted by Sims Metal before pandemic restrictions forced the meetings to be held online. “The mix of city officials, businesses, developers and community organisations has led to some unique opportunities to make an impact,” she explains.

For instance, there has been a focus on enhancing the appearance of the corridor itself. “The association was keen to reduce litter and dumping, as well as inject some life into the roadway, so Sims Metal engaged a Downtown Streets Team to provide biweekly clean-ups along the fence line of our property,” Jill stated.

The team members are unhoused neighbours or people at risk of experiencing homelessness, and the fees from organisations like Sims Metal help fund access to trained case managers, who assist team members with navigating support options, such as employment services.

“We were also really excited to welcome local artist and muralist Tomas ‘Wisper’ Talamantes to create artwork on the exterior of our site, creating two beautiful murals that pay homage to the diverse local community and to the work we do at Sims Metal,” said Jill.

Tomas, an ex-gang member, developed an art program called Teach Peace, where he teaches life lessons to young people in the San Jose area through art and mural projects.

As for the future of the group? Jill is excited. “Now we are working with the city to establish as a 501(c) non-profit organization to help secure the future of the association and expand the impact we can have. By early 2023, we hope to have everything in place and be able to meet in person once again.”

Would you like to start a partnership with Sims Metal? Get in touch with us!

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This month, members of the executive leadership team hosted an investor strategy day in Sydney Australia. We unveiled our multi-year strategic growth plan and shared how our purpose, create a world without waste to preserve our planet, will help us achieve it.

We presented our goals for growing our metals, e-recycling/ITAD and municipal recycling business units.

Those goals include:

• Continue leading metal recycling by nearly doubling non-ferrous recycling in the United States and growing the US ferrous business by 40% in six years.
• Increase e-recycling services and become the leading e-recycler of data storage centers (also known as “the cloud”). Our objective is to recycle 10% of the cloud over the next six years and be the original equipment manufacturers’ supplier of choice for recycled plastic.
• Lead change in municipal recycling by implementing new systems for better solutions. Our goal is to secure additional large city recycling contracts within the next six years.

During our presentation, we acknowledged that there has been a great deal of change in our industry, and while our goals for growth are strong, it’s not enough. For us to continue the success we’ve seen over the past 100+ years, we have to evolve our business to fit the changing landscape. In line with our purpose and commitment to sustainability, we are introducing a new line of business under the Sims umbrella: renewable energy.

Expanding into the energy business will allow us to reduce waste and produce renewable energy, as well as provide even more opportunities for Sims’ growth. Our energy goals include:

• Expand into waste-to-energy by recycling the non-metallic residue from the shredding process (ASR) to generate electricity. We aim to build and operate seven plants within the next 10 years.
• Leverage the expertise and best practices from our joint venture partner LMS Energy, the leading landfill energy company in Australia, to expand that business model into other parts of the world. Our objective is to acquire or build 50 Megawatts of sites within the next six years.

Feel free to watch a replay of our presentation by clicking here.

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