“Zero CO2 Emissions by 2050” Decarbonization model applied to a CNH Industrial plant

In the broader context of climate change, specially concerning the level of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere that reaches record levels every year, the industrial sector, responsible for almost a quarter of direct global CO2 emissions, is beginning to play a crucial role in fighting global warming. Many companies of this sector therefore are leading the transition to a zero carbon economy, in order to fulfil the stringent targets specified in the last report "Global Warming of 1.5°C", published in October 2018 by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): limit the global temperature increase to 1.5 °C and reduce human-made CO2 emissions of 45% by 2030 compared to 2010 levels, reaching "zero net” by 2050. This Thesis aims to show the development of a decarbonization model applied to a CNH industrial plant, which is based on the Sectoral Decarbonization Approach (SDA) method that illustrates the scale of emissions mitigation required to achieve the “carbon neutrality” target. The first chapter presents the alarming data and measurements concerning global warming, carried out by NASA over the years, which "Global Warming of 1.5°C" report has brought to the attention of the Countries. This report inevitably influenced the subsequent Conference of Parties (COP 24), held in Katowice, Poland, in December 2018, suggesting Countries to redefine their previous targets more strictly. Consequently, companies need ambitious objectives for reducing their emissions and to ensure that their industrial transformation actions are in line with current scientific targets. The second part of the chapter introduces an initiative, called Science Based Target, through which companies can define their decarbonization targets in a "science-based" way, to align with the level of decarbonization required for keeping the global temperature rise at 1.5 °C or well-below 2 °C compared to pre-industrial temperatures. The second chapter illustrates CNH Industrial Company, its operating structure, its approach to sustainability and the results achieved over the years, as Industry Leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) World for the eighth consecutive year. Moreover, it describes the efficient energy management system and its energy and environmental performances. In the third chapter the specific plant, focus of this case study, is analyzed, starting from the energy performances in terms of both energy consumption and CO2 emissions and comparing them with the other plants of the Company through an internal benchmark. The fourth and last chapter describes the decarbonization model used, starting from the data utilized for its construction until the hypotheses made following the guidelines of the SDA method. Therefore, the path that the plant should pursue to reach the target by 2050, considering also the projects that the plant aims to make in the next years for evaluating their effectiveness in terms of emission reduction. Finally, the flexibility of the SDA method allows to divide the emissions into two categories, direct and indirect: through this subdivision it’s possible to suggest and evaluate some actions that can be taken into consideration to start reducing CO2 emissions in a few years. One of these actions is the implementation of a photovoltaic project that can provide a considerable part of the electricity consumed by the plant and therefore reduce nearly completely indirect emissions, since it is a renewable zero-impact technology.