Petaling Jaya, 17 January, 2023 - As part of its global commitment to environmental and social responsibility, Continental Tyre Malaysia held its Energy & Environment Day to showcase and celebrate its achievements towards energy and environmental efficiency.

The event is aimed at all Continental’s employees and partners in Malaysia. This year, over 400 people participated to learn more about the company’s commitment to higher energy efficiency and a sustainable environment towards its 2050 global sustainability ambitions and goals.

The theme for this event, “Energizing a Green Future”, highlighted the journey ahead for Continental in terms of contributing to a sustainable environment. Besides gaining a deeper understanding of ways they could play a role in the company’s wider sustainability plans, participants were made aware of the greater need for collaboration among all parties in order to support and commit to the changing environment. 

According to Thomas Poehnert, Plant Manager of Continental Tyre Malaysia, Continental is cognizant that it needs the support of all stakeholders including employees, partners, dealers and above all else, its customers to collectively contribute towards environmental protection and conservation.

“While Continental has earnestly rolled out its plans to realise its sustainability ambitions, the public, and more specifically our customers, is key to our plans to continue to drive environment and energy efficiency. We have purposeful and clear goals in place to support this agenda, and we need all our partners and customers to embrace and take this journey with us. Our people are the lifeblood of our company, so they too have a critical role to understand our value creation beyond developing quality products but doing so in a manner that is extremely innovative and environmentally friendly,” Thomas said.

In Malaysia currently, some of Continental’s sustainability efforts include recycling systems for rainwater and plastic. Rainwater collected at the Continental plant is reused in its production, replacing the need for water from the main supply. Meanwhile, plastic is recycled within the plant and reused in its tyre production, thus minimizing the need for new plastic sheets.  

Andrea Somorova, Managing Director of Continental Tyre Malaysia said driving sustainable growth must be complemented by innovation towards sustainable solutions and waste reduction.

Andrea said, “The Energy & Environment Day gave our people and partners the opportunity to come together and exchange ideas in terms of the plans already in place and what they can expect in the coming years. We also got to celebrate their achievements in contributing to Continental’s goals within this area.”

Continental’s commitment to drive sustainable and value-creating solutions along the entire value chain covers four key areas with targets to be achieved by 2050. These are: material sourcing - fair and 100% sustainable material sourcing practices; operations – to become highly energy and resource efficient, complemented by low emissions operations with 100% carbon neutral production; product usage – safe, energy-efficient and long-lasting products contributing to a carbon neutral business with emission-free mobility; and end of life - with 100 percent renewing and recycling of tires.

Activities on the day included two Tesla EV cars that were being exhibited to showcase the sustainability commitment that Continental has towards future mobility. Continental tyres are suitable for most of the EV cars; seven out of 10 most successful manufacturers of electric vehicles worldwide rely on Continental tyres as their original equipment (OE). Participants also learned from partners which included GSPARX, Exoticmods, Festo, Suruhanjaya Tenaga, and Institut Latihan Perindustrian (ILP) who had booths at the event about detailed information, knowledge sharing sessions related to energy saving, technology, and recycling.