While Autex Acoustics has earnt global recognition for their superb acoustic solutions, the company has also rightfully gained prominence as an industry leader in the sustainability space. Founded in the late 1960s in Auckland, New Zealand, Autex Acoustics started as a producer of underfelt for the flooring industry but has since undergone a comprehensive business transformation and this year has achieved carbon neutrality. Here, we take a look at what has led to this milestone, and how the company achieves carbon neutrality across their operations.
“Autex Acoustics has always been an environmentally conscious business,” says Bill Paton, Managing Director of Autex Acoustics Australia. “But one of the most significant shifts occurred in the 1990s when we developed a more considered approach to sustainability.” This augmented environmental awareness accelerated further development in that space, and before the new millennium started, Autex Acoustics had established a zero-waste production line.
The company has gone from strength to strength ever since. 2012 signalled an increased focus on reclaimed waste trimmings, as well as reducing raw material use and associated emissions, setting off Autex Acoustics’ efforts to close the loop. Just a few years after that, in 2017 with the help of a dedicated sustainability team, Autex Acoustics started measuring greenhouse gas emissions and published its first Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) which – alongside other independently verifiable certifications – continues to underpin the company’s transparent approach to sustainability.
The last few years have been equally as significant in terms of advancing the company’s environmental ambitions – and not even the global pandemic managed to hinder their resolve. In 2020, Autex Acoustics launched the Carbon Neutral Project Initiative (CNPI). The idea underpinning the CNPI was to turn any greenhouse gas emissions associated with the supply, production, and delivery of all Autex products into United Nations (UN) certified carbon credits.
Alongside this important initiative, 2020 marked the inauguration of the dematerialisation project, which was aimed at reducing raw material use by 30% for the core product, only to balance all emission from acoustics products to zero only a year later. This effort was crowned by the launch of Autex Acoustics’ first entirely carbon neutral product – Acoustic Timber™, a new generation acoustic solution with a range of finishes emulating the grains of real timber.
These pivotal milestones achieved by Autex Acoustics over the years amount to a clear, mature and comprehensive sustainability agenda which is aligned with United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and underpinned by five pillars which define the company’s operations.
“We believe the built environment has an important role in achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals,” says Paton. “We have identified 6 SDGs with which our strategy is closely connected. As a sustainable business with a global reach, we are committed to helping achieve these global goals.”
In line with those core pillars, the company is committed to using both safe and recycled materials that contain no harmful chemicals to produce recyclable products designed to foster well-being of the buildings as well as their occupants. The purposeful company is also careful to partner only with the right suppliers who operate in ethical ways, and only deal work with clean raw materials. And this year, of course, the company balanced all emissions from global operations to zero, a year after achieving carbon neutrality across all acoustic products in 2021. How does Autex Acoustics achieve that?
“Firstly, Autex’s measures the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions of all global organisational emissions annually,” starts Aidan Hill, Group Technical & Sustainability Manager. “Next, we do carbon accounting in accordance with ISO 14064-1, which specifies principles and requirements at the organisational level for the quantification and reporting of GHG emissions and removals.”
Hill explains that what follows is an independent, annual verification check of the GHG data which is conducted using a sample-based approach. “Once carbon calculations have been third-party verified, operational emissions are offset through investment in the equivalent number of certified carbon credits issued by the UN,” Hill adds. “Carbon emissions continue to be measured and monitored annually with carbon reduction initiatives implemented.”
These comprehensive efforts are a clear reflection of the fact that the leaders in acoustic solutions not only understand the urgent need for climate action, but consider it their duty. “We believe it’s our ethical, social, and environmental responsibility to be carbon neutral in everything we do,” says Hill. “The building and construction industry makes up 38% of global carbon emissions; with 11% of that being from materials and construction. Our actions can contribute to reducing our industry’s impact on climate change when we embrace innovation and act together.”
With a strong resolve to maintain their status as a carbon neutral organisation, a desire to act and an ambition to drive collective action, Autex Acoustics’ future focus is set to help lead the industry to a more sustainable future and the all-important goal of global net-zero by 2050 – and offer their customers a chance to join in on these efforts.
