Sustainability

More and more people all over the world are focusing on activities that are beneficial to the environment. Aluminum plays a key role in environmental sustainability because it can be recycled repeatedly, quickly and cost efficiently without any material decline in performance or quality. Its light weight also promotes improved fuel efficiency in a wide range of vehicles.

The Aleris Commitment to Sustainability

Aleris International is a young company – formed in 2004.  As such, some of our sustainability efforts are in their early stages.  However, look deeper into Aleris and you’ll find a company that’s already strong in three areas: reusing the material it makes, producing a strong and lightweight material that saves energy down the road, and using less energy at its facilities.

Aluminum can be recycled repeatedly, quickly, and cost efficiently without any material decline in performance or quality.  Recycling aluminum uses approximately 95 percent less energy than extracting and processing bauxite ore to produce primary aluminum.  Labor and capital costs are approximately 90 percent less.  Solid waste is reduced, too.  In addition, our recycling and specification alloys businesses provide recycled aluminum and aluminum alloys in molten form to customers, eliminating the need to re-heat solid metal.  In short, our global operations are world class in recovering and recycling aluminum from a variety of sources. 

Thanks to an active, aggressive program to control energy consumption throughout our global operations, our overall energy efficiency has increased by more than 14 percent since 2004.

Finally, OEMs in the automotive, aerospace, and the transportation industries use aluminum’s light weight to create products that are lighter and more fuel efficient, saving yet more energy. 

There is more to be done. But I stand firm in our company’s commitment to sustainability, and feel an enormous amount of satisfaction to be part of the caring Aleris team.

Cordially,

Steven J. Demetriou
Chairman and CEO, Aleris International Inc.