GF aligns its reporting with the requirements of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), reflecting the growing importance of these disclosures among investors and businesses. GF has committed to disclosing its climate-related financial reporting annually and aligned its enterprise risk management process with the recommendations of the TCFD. In 2022, we further improved our TCFD-aligned risk assessment, adding a financial quantification to material climate-related risks and opportunities.

For more information on the TCFD, visit www.fsb-tcfd.org

This report presents the 11 disclosures recommended by the TCFD in the sections governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets. For more detailed information, please follow the links provided as they refer to GF's existing disclosures in its annual and sustainability reports, including its response to the 2022 climate change questionnaire of CDP, formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project.

GF believes sustainability is a topic of critical importance. GF therefore formed a Sustainability Committee in 2020 to support the Board of Directors in strengthening the company’s focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) topics. The Sustainability Committee is part of the Nomination Committee. The Charter of the Nomination and Sustainability Committee defines that regular meetings are held at least twice a year. In 2022, the committee met three times to discuss, among others, climate-related issues. The Sustainability Committee’s agenda explicitly refers to eight GF sustainability goals for 2025, which include climate change. Climate change has been discussed at every meeting since the committee’s founding. GF’s overall progress is monitored against a predefined timeline and the 2021–2025 strategy cycle.

An essential role of the Sustainability Committee is to ensure that executive remuneration is linked to ESG targets and aligns with the eight goals of the GF Sustainability Framework 2025. Accordingly, each Executive Committee member has the company-wide CO₂e target as a remuneration incentive. GF also defined the target to implement the TCFD’s recommendations and publish the company's first TCFD report in March 2022, which was included in its Annual Report 2021.

The Executive Committee has direct oversight over the progress made towards strategic goals and targets, including those that are climate related. In addition, the committee conducts performance reviews on a regular basis (two to four times a year) and at its management meetings with each division. These reviews enable the committee to take the necessary strategic and operational actions to ensure that target achievement remains on track.

Sustainability remained a strategic topic in 2022. For the roll-out of the Sustainability Framework 2025, GF established the Corporate Sustainability Council (CSC) at the Executive Committee level. The CSC coordinates and oversees all activities relating to sustainability. It is headed by the CSC Chairperson, advises the committee, and consists of the CEO, CFO, divisional presidents, corporate and divisional sustainability teams, and other members of GF’s top management. The CSC’s key responsibilities include tracking and reporting the progress and measures of the framework; supporting the committee on decisions on cross-divisional, strategic sustainability projects and initiatives; coordinating and supervising sustainability projects and initiatives and reporting on their progress to the Executive Committee. The CSC meets at least biannually.

For more information, see:

GF has a clear governance structure in place to assess and manage risks related to sustainability. As already mentioned, GF formed the Sustainability Committee in 2020 and the Corporate Sustainability Council in 2021. Their roles and responsibilities are described above.

The wider GF sustainability organization includes Corporate Sustainability, which is led by the Head of Corporate Sustainability, who reports to the CFO. The department oversees strategic, cross-functional sustainability projects and initiatives globally, and is responsible for sustainability reporting as well as dialogue with external stakeholders, such as ESG rating agencies. The Head of Corporate Sustainability participates in Sustainability Committee meetings.

Corporate Sustainability works closely with the three divisions’ sustainability teams to ensure they track the progress of the divisions’ facilities and business units toward their respective 2025 sustainability targets. The department is responsible for raising the organization’s awareness of sustainability and thus of climate-related risks.

The sustainability teams evaluate their division's sustainability performance on a quarterly basis and present their findings to their respective management teams. The following aspects are reviewed: the achievement of sustainability targets and the implementation status of agreed-on actions, the monitoring of the sustainability performance of business partners, and the development and marketing of products and solutions offering sustainability benefits to GF customers.

The divisions define a set of measures each year to achieve GF's sustainability targets. Each divisional sustainability manager is responsible for ensuring that the individual facilities define and implement measures to meet their respective targets, for compiling an aggregated overview for their division to track progress, and for coordinating with Corporate Sustainability on status, experience-sharing across divisions and, where needed, for escalation.

Target achievement – including the achievement of sustainability-related targets, such as the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions – is incentivized at various levels. For example, individual targets are defined for Executive Committee members as well as for the corporate and divisional sustainability teams.

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GF has identified hazards in categories relevant to its business model and in the context of climate-related risks and opportunities. These risks include both acute and chronic physical risks, transition risks and opportunities.

Physical risks include tropical cyclones, sea level rise, river flooding, precipitation, fire, drought and heat. For more information, please refer to the in-depth analysis and conclusions drawn from this report.

Transition risks include GHG prices, the security of energy and processes, regulations and taxes, litigation, consumer preferences, the availability of capital, the energy transition and raw materials. More information is available in section 3.1. and the in-depth analysis of financial quantification.

Opportunities include transportation, production and distribution processes, recycling, low-emissions energy sources, the carbon market, growing consumer demand, the diversification of business activities, availability of capital and substitutes for existing resources. More information is available in section 3.1.

For more information, see:

The GF product portfolio includes many solutions that help customers mitigate their climate impacts. All three GF divisions have significant opportunities because changing consumer preferences and growing investor focus require their product portfolios to become more energy-efficient and sustainable. GF provides its customers with sustainable products and enters new markets with increased demand for sustainable alternatives.

Across its diverse product portfolio and operations, GF procures the majority of its raw materials, goods and services locally. This approach aims to ensure that the company’s raw material deliveries reduce the impact of intercontinental distribution networks, while recognizing the consequences of these activities and the effect that a changing climate may have on the supply chain. In addition, GF’s manufacturing facilities are in close proximity to their customers and strive to continually optimize their logistics footprints. Examples include GF’s two new factories in China – namely, GF Piping Systems in Yangzhou and GF Casting Solutions in Shenyang. GF heavily relies on the timely delivery of raw materials, goods and services. Acute physical risks, such as heavy rain, wildfires or floods, can lead to the destruction of key infrastructure, thereby impeding transportation and potentially resulting in product supply shortages.

The GF Code for Business Partners, which defines strict environmental, social and compliance standards, is mandatory for suppliers to all three GF divisions.

GF is committed to delivering solutions that help customers mitigate their contribution to climate change and enhance their resilience and adaptation to it. GF also emphasizes innovation and R&D, and therefore invests in R&D to create innovative new products and solutions that provide customers with environmental, climate and social benefits during the products’ use phase. In 2022, GF's overall R&D expenses were at CHF 120 million.

For more information, see:

The resilience of GF’s future strategy is affected by the transition to a low-carbon economy, which presents both opportunities and risks. GF has therefore analyzed a range of climate scenarios that show possible outcomes under different climatic conditions. To project a scenario aligned with the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 2°C or a lower scenario, the International Energy Agency's (IEA’s) Sustainable Development Scenario was used. At the time of GF’s assessment, this was the IEA’s best and most recent well-below-2-degree scenario. GF’s assessment analyzes various factors that could impact GF’s future business strategy and its ability to achieve long-term profitability.

Furthermore, to assess GF’s exposure to physical risks, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) representative concentration pathways (RCP) were used in a business-as-usual scenario (RCP 4.5) and a 4°C scenario (RCP 8.5) by 2050. In the analysis, 2050 was used as a reference year in line with the Paris Agreement’s 2050 target for net-zero emissions. The Sustainability Committee made a conscious decision not to use climate scenarios that go beyond 2050.

This climate risk analysis was prepared using the Climate Change Edition of reinsurer Munich Re’s Location Risk Intelligence software. It found that physical risks such as tropical cyclones and sea level rise are immaterial to GF’s operations, whereas river flooding and precipitation posed a high risk to some operations. The percentages below refer to the proportion of GF’s global production facilities that are exposed to a specific risk category.

Undefended river flood describes the risk of flooding in areas where no flood protection systems or defense structures (such as dams) are in place. Under a 4°C scenario in 2050, the share of high-risk flood sites increases from 21% in 2021 to 28%. River flood is a particularly strong hazard in the majority of Chinese sites of all divisions.

Due to global warming and rising ocean temperatures, air contains more moisture, which leads to an increase in heavy precipitation events. Heavy rainfall increases the risk of floods, which often lead to the destruction of infrastructure. The share of high-risk sites for heavy rain increases from 24% in 2021 to 28% in 2050 under a 4°C scenario, with a strong impact projected on sites in China, Switzerland and the United States.

Wildfires are destructive hazards that can occur naturally or be caused by humans. Fires destroy vegetation and lead to the destruction of infrastructure and economic resources. No GF sites fall into the high-risk category, but the share of medium-to-high risk sites at GF increases from 12% in 2021 to 19% in 2050 under a 4°C scenario. All other sites face only minor hazards.

Increasing temperatures combined with changes in precipitation patterns could cause drier weather conditions and more frequent and intense droughts that have severe economic, environmental and social impacts. Bakersfield, CA (US) was identified as the only high-risk site for drought, but the number of medium-risk sites increases from 12% in 2021 to 31% in 2050 under a 4°C scenario.

Global warming leads to increasing temperatures and more intense and frequent heatwaves. Heat stress affects humans, infrastructure and ecosystems. In 2021, only 3% of GF sites are in the high-risk range, but this increases to 10% in 2050 under a 4°C scenario. GF’s projections show heat stress is of particular significance for Chinese sites in all divisions.

Risks identified at GF are based on a biannual risk mapping analysis and assessed for their likelihood of occurrence and potential impacts. Where possible and appropriate, the consequences of the identified risks are quantitatively evaluated, taking into consideration the frequency of consequences and any mitigation measures already implemented (alternatively, a qualitative assessment of the risk exposure is applied). As a result, the risk consequences are classified in terms of their potential financial cost to the business:

To also account for financial impacts arising from climate-related opportunities, the same classification has been applied, but with different labels: minor, major, large, and extreme. GF determines the potential overall impact of identified risks by combining their likelihood of occurrence with their potential financial cost and factoring in any other relevant concerns, such as reputational damage or legal impacts. Material impacts are evaluated based on a tiered system of threshold values, depending on the risk scope. Risks at the corporate, divisional and facility level have different sets of thresholds, since facilities vary in size.

In general, GF considers an impact to be substantive, if:

In 2021, GF conducted a workshop attended by experts from all three divisions, Corporate Risk Management and Corporate Sustainability. Its purpose was to define the main climate-related risks and opportunities and assess their possible impacts. The workshop considered impacts on GF’s business activities that could result from the physical effects of climate change and transition risks such as political, technological, market and reputational developments. It also identified relevant climate-related opportunities resulting from resource efficiencies, energy sources, products and services, and market demands.

For more information, see:

In 2022, GF’s material transitory risks and opportunities were financially quantified and classified as described above. This enables the company to prioritize defined climate-related risks and opportunities and compare their impact with that of other risk categories.

The security of the energy supply and energy prices are two risks deemed to have a major to critical financial impact. Some of GF’s business is energy intensive, and energy costs are therefore critical. Although energy price fluctuations are normal, sustained higher prices would challenge GF's competitiveness. Analyses of historical energy prices, such as the IEA’s Energy Prices Data Explorer, do not indicate any clear price trends. In 2022, for example, Europe experienced an unprecedented energy crisis due to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. The war’s repercussions have caused energy prices to increase by more than 100%. An increase of just 25% would result in about CHF 17 million in additional costs for GF and thus constitute a critical financial impact.

The automotive industry is currently shifting to more sustainable forms of mobility, by transitioning from internal combustion engines (ICEs) to electric and other alternative drivetrains like fuel cells. For GF´s Casting Solutions division, this will lead to a shift in demand of automotive customers. If consumers embrace alternative forms of mobility, products for ICE-powered vehicles will most likely decline, whereas new components for electric drivetrains are increasingly in demand. GF quantified these changes using different scenarios for the period 2021 to 2030, which are based on governments’ e-mobility targets or a net-zero world.

However, most of GF's automotive products are independent to the drivetrain and hence not effected by the change in customer demand. The shift to e-mobility creates an increased business opportunity from contributing to the automotive industry’s low-emission products, specifically products that propel the growth of e-mobility. GF Casting Solutions long-term expertise on lightweight design and functional integration strongly supports automotive customers towards sustainable mobility.

Financial quantification of risks and opportunities is GF’s preferred approach. For some impacts, however, much less data is available, and the assumptions regarding them are highly uncertain. In these cases, GF adopts a qualitative approach. One example is the opportunity to diversify business activities, such as entering or expanding GF’s position in markets for sustainable products. These include e-mobility, lightweight products, carbon blades and hydrogen products.

Hydrogen is seen as a key energy carrier that is supporting the energy transition worldwide. GF Piping Systems is constantly innovating its solutions to support this growing industry along the entire hydrogen value chain, from production and storage to distribution and use. Its hydrogen expertise is founded on decades of experience in gas supply, industrial water treatment and the general transport of substances in multiple industrial applications. While the growth of hydrogen presents numerous and promising opportunities, the pace of growth is still uncertain. It is therefore currently not possible to quantify these opportunities.

GF employs various tools to manage internal and external risks, including those directly related to climate change. For example, Thomson Reuters Accelus, an enterprise risk management (ERM) tool, is used at the corporate and facility/asset level and along the value chain to assess specific upstream and downstream risks. The assessment encompasses the systematic identification, evaluation and reporting of strategic, operational, financial, social, environmental and climate-related risks as well as the maintenance of commensurate insurance coverage.

GF also identifies climate-related risks, particularly physical risks, using the aforementioned Munich Re tool. In addition, Corporate Sustainability at GF conducts independent research in collaboration with consulting firms.

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Climate-related risks are integrated into GF’s risk management system via its combined ERM process. The clear organization of climate activities and governance roles ensures that GF works efficiently and improves continually. In the future, GF plans to further align its on-site risk management process to the TCFD risk management process in order to adopt a single approach for all risk categories. This consolidation will ensure the complete integration of climate-related risks and opportunities into GF’s ERM system.

GF believes it must take great care to avoid potentially adverse environmental impacts and has identified "climate and energy" as one of its most relevant material topics. GF therefore intends to reduce its GHG emissions across the value chain and decrease energy consumption throughout its global operations. In practical terms, this means improving energy efficiency, promoting the use of renewable energy sources, evaluating measures to self-generate renewable energy on-site and procuring renewable energy certificates.

In addition, GF assessed the environmental impact of its direct operations and found that waste generated during production is one of the largest components of its environmental footprint. Although the majority of GF’s waste is non-hazardous, the company has a responsibility to minimize both hazardous and non-hazardous waste. GF therefore continually monitors waste-related KPIs and strives to implement circular economy principles wherever possible, including finding new and effective ways to reuse and recycle materials.

From a manufacturing perspective, GF’s water consumption has a smaller impact on its environmental footprint than GHG emissions and waste generation, as most of its processes are not water intensive. Nonetheless, GF’s latest materiality analysis indicated that sustainably managing its water footprint is a growing priority for its stakeholders and customers.

In 2022, GF continued its quarterly sustainability reporting (internally only) and, since October 2021, it has included specific references to its progress in reducing its CO₂e footprint. GF’s quarterly reporting focuses on approximately 37 production sites responsible for over 90% of total CO₂e emissions (scope 1 and 2).

For more information, see:

Scope 3 emissions data were calculated using a combination of methods for each category as prescribed by the GHG Protocol. Primary supplier data (if available) were used for those categories that contribute most to emissions, whereas secondary data were used for those activities that contribute least to emissions. For "purchased goods and services,” supplier-specific data based on GHG inventory sources for raw materials were obtained. For the "use phase of sold products,” activity data were used based on the electricity consumed during operating hours for each type of machine.

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In October 2021, the GF Nomination and Sustainability Committee (NSC) approved a more ambitious science-based target aligned with the 1.5°C warming scenario. This target was validated by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) in 2022. This decision aligns GF’s ambition level with the latest climate science and the IPCC’s recommendation.

By 2026, GF commits to reducing its scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions by 30% in absolute terms. The company also commits to reducing its scope 3 GHG emissions from purchased goods and services and from the use of sold products by 34.6% per tonne of processed material by 2030. Both targets are relative to 2019. These targets are fully aligned with the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

GF will reduce its scope 3 emissions by working closely with its suppliers to implement dedicated CO₂e reduction measures and transition its energy portfolio to renewable energy. GF’s product portfolio offers clear advantages to customers, as it provides numerous sustainable products that can help them reduce their CO₂e footprint. In addition, GF has set a target for its product portfolio to generate 70% of sales with social and environmental benefits by 2025, compared with 58% in 2020. For GF Piping Systems, this target includes replacing raw materials with bio-based alternatives, deploying automated flow solutions to reduce non-revenue water and maintaining leakage-free piping systems for the safe transport of water, gases and chemicals. GF Casting Solutions' focus remains on manufacturing lightweight mobility and energy components. For GF Machining Solutions, milling and electrical discharge machining (EDM) will become even more energy-efficient, and it will employ laser technology to replace hazardous chemical etching.

In 2022, energy-efficiency measures were identified for all production sites and typically involved replacing or retrofitting equipment in cases where it is possible to achieve energy reductions of up to 20%. Other measures include upgrading heating, cooling, and compressed air systems, insulating equipment, and reducing the energy consumption of buildings and production sites. GF has also placed significant focus on installing solar panels on its sites. Initial estimates indicate that this will yield energy savings that correspond to a reduction of roughly 2% to 5% in scope 2 CO₂e emissions.

GF is currently also evaluating the implications of the SBTi’s Net Zero Standard of 28 October 2021, to assess the options and roadmap for setting a net-zero target.

For more information, see: