Tackling Sustainability Challenges as a Collaborative Ecosystem

By: Andy Ishmael, MI2 Metals Leadership Council Member and Sustainability Strategy Group Leader

[Image: Andy Ishmael]

The Metals Innovation Initiative's Sustainability Strategy Group is committed to facilitating collaboration amongst our members and innovation ecosystem to drive continuous improvement to the sustainability of our operations across the Kentucky metals industry. Simultaneously, we’re working to aggregate proven data from the industry that demonstrates success toward these goals and ensures those stories are told in ways that inspire MI2’s various stakeholders and the wider population of the Commonwealth.

Through those efforts, we want the Bluegrass State to become a leader for how we collectively approach our commitment to sustainability, showcasing the positive impact that can be achieved when government, higher education, and industry work together.

Our Sustainability Strategy Group is taking action to prioritize time, people, and resources toward making the metals industry the standard for sustainability.

I became involved in MI2 through my role as Vice President of Business Development at Tri-Arrows Aluminum. Throughout two decades in this industry, I have seen firsthand how deeply recycling has been a core focus for all our metals companies. However, our Sustainability Strategy Group builds on that core commitment–identifying and tackling additional significant sustainability opportunities and challenges.

The work of our Sustainability Strategy Group fits right into where all our members’ companies are going. At the core of our work is looking at where MI2 can take action and tackle some of these bigger challenges across the whole ecosystem–not company by company, but through collaborative action with one another and our ecosystem partners.

We are focusing this year on two major projects. The first looks at piloting the replacement of some conventional fork trucks with electric or hydrogen-powered trucks. The second looks at opportunities for recovering waste heat from the furnaces in our various companies’ facilities.

The fork truck pilot program, led by Logan Aluminum Environmental, Safety & Security Manager Van Mitchell, aims to determine whether alternative power sources for fork trucks can be economically and environmentally viable. We greatly appreciate Van and Logan Aluminum taking the lead on this pilot and being open to every aspect of this pilot, from conversations with the potential vendors to implementation of the pilot, giving opportunities for other member companies to visit the facility and see an alternative energy fork truck in action.

As we learn from this pilot, we know that the outcomes will be of interest well beyond our metals industry members and partners. If our industry can figure out the feasibility and approach to fork trucks that use alternative energy sources, it could possibly translate to many of the manufacturing facilities in Kentucky.

Our second pilot program focuses on collaborating with partners throughout our ecosystem–our member companies, university researchers, startups, and others–to explore waste heat recovery, which involves measuring waste heat and investing in potential solutions that minimize and/or make use of that waste heat in ways that minimizes the risk of exploring those solutions for our companies individually.

Through these pilots, our Sustainability Strategy Group is exploring the next steps for the metals industry to move towards a more sustainable future. I’m especially excited to see these specific, tangible year-one projects that demonstrate the strength of collaboration among government, higher education and industry.

I know that MI2 can help the Kentucky metals industry build a bright and sustainable future by forging innovative ideas that can scale and that can demonstrate the return on investment to these collaborative ecosystem approaches. I can’t wait to share with you all what we learn from these year one pilots.