Corporate sustainability in the aerospace industry

Prior to founding BE.ive, we worked in corporate sustainability at Airbus. Airbus is a commercial aircraft manufacturer, with Space and Defence as well as Helicopters Divisions. An international pioneer in the aerospace industry, it is the largest aeronautics and space company in Europe and a worldwide leader with aircraft and helicopter final assembly lines across Asia, Europe and the Americas. Airbus is headquartered in Toulouse, France. It has a workforce of 129,000 and generated 66,8 billion EUR of revenues in 2017.

Mission and impacts

Environmental audits

• Managing ISO 14001 internal and external environmental audits (surveillance and re-certification) across 7 countries, multiple departments and coordinating more than 200 stakeholders;
• Preparing employees for environment audits through the development of an explanatory flyer;
• Preparing the transition to the new norm (ISO-14001 2015) through the analysis of the standard, the preparation of training materials and the organization of training sessions for employees across different key departments (more than 200 people trained);
• Developing a thematic audit findings database shared across all Airbus sites and departments in order to perform a global assessment of the strengths and weaknesses identified and make sure that good practices are shared across all sites and departments.

Group-level activities

• Coordinating cross-divisional working groups on legal compliance (focus: chemical regulations), the end-of-life management of products, and eco-design and life cycle analysis;
• Performing risk and opportunities analysis (ERM);
• Preparing awareness briefs (for employees and executives) on key trends;
• Contributing to the annual CSR and Board of Directors reports;
• Coordinating the preparation of group-level policies and strategies;
• Supporting the organisation of group-wide events.

Industrial environmental footprint reduction program Blue5

• Conducting data and trends analysis, benchmarking, and collecting expert recommendations;
• Delivering strategic recommendations for the next set of industrial environmental objectives;
• Helping innovative projects with a sustainability benefit find public-funding, from the identification of schemes, to improvement recommendations and the facilitation of applications.

REACH compliance management

• Supporting compliance management in collaboration with legal and procurement teams.

Support to inter-company and sectorial collaboration activities

• Leading a taskforce to prepare and release sectoral guidance on the REACH regulation through the Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Europe;
• Organising the first ever International Aerospace Environmental Group meeting and supporting the board of Directors.

 

Keywords: aerospace industry, CSR, audits, reporting, ISO 14001, compliance, public funding, end-of-life, REACH, eco-design, life-cycle analysis