Safran Nacelles in Gonfreville-l’Orcher, Seine-Maritime (76), is a world leader in aircraft nacelles and is cutting its carbon footprint throughout its business.
It’s the group’s biggest production facility in France. Safran Nacelles has 1550 permanent employees at its 80,000m2 site near Le Havre. One of the world’s leading aircraft engine nacelle manufacturers has three specialist workshops (composite materials, nozzle design and thrust reverser assembly) and an R&D centre at the Normandy site. It also has a customer support centre (240 people) to take care of aerospace manufacturers and airline companies around the world.
The group began rolling out a global strategy to cut carbon emissions from its manufacturing in 2019. Objective: halve its carbon footprint by 2030 to be carbon neutral in 2050, in line with the French government’s energy-climate plan. Just like the other sites, Gonfreville-L’Orcher has a role to play and does its bit. “We hired two engineers to manage the project – one for decarbonisation and one for energy efficiency,” says Olivier Aguillon, director.
Solar park and biomass heater
One of the stars of the decarbonisation campaign is the solar park that opened on-site in 2023. The car park canopies have 12,000 solar panels (26,000m2, 5MW) and fulfil 25% of the plant’s electricity requirements.
It's the biggest self-consumption solar park on an industrial site in France. It saves 66 tons of CO2 per year.
The Gonfreville-L’Orcher site is reducing how much gas it uses too. Up to now, the company used the CO2-emitting fossil fuel to power manufacturing equipment and heat the production facilities. Safran Nacelles was one of the first manufacturers in the Le Havre port area to sign an agreement with BioSynErgy in 2020 to replace gas. The district heating network, implemented by Le Havre Seine Métropole, is fuelled by a biomass heater. “It’s been supplying our hot water and heating network for a year.It’s meant we can switch off our gas heaters, reduce our energy use by 92% and save 1700 tons of CO2 per year,” says the director. These measures have been helped by insulating the workshops to improve energy efficiency.
Decarbonisation, a team effort
Everyone plays a role in keeping each building at 19°. The director believes it’s crucial for the staff to play their part in the environmental measures.
Reducing our carbon footprint is a team effort. We've trained 97% of our staff with the Climate Fresk to raise awareness about climate change.
There are EV chargers on the staff car parks (50 at the moment, 250 expected in the next 3 years) and a bike finance scheme for employees. 240 people currently use the chargers (compared to just 40 two years ago) and 250 employees are on the bike finance scheme.
“We’ve already reduced our carbon footprint by 60%”
The eco-friendly measures at the Le Havre site have cleared decarbonisation for take-off at Safran Nacelles. “We’ve already reduced our carbon footprint by 60%, exceeding our objectives for 2025,” the director says. “We’ve also cut our energy use by 30% compared to last year. For a site like ours, that means hundreds of thousands of Euros in savings every year.“
Over the next few months, the plant will explore how to reduce the impact of the planes themselves (air travel is responsible for 4% of global CO2 emissions). Given their expertise and specialist composite materials workshop, the group has selected Gonfreville-L’Orcher to develop next-generation parts for the RISE project (Revolutionary Innovation for Sustainable Engines). The SAFRAN and GE project aims to design a more fuel-efficient engine (using 20% less energy than current engines). It could go to market in 2050.
“It launched late last year and is one of the biggest projects we’ll be working on over the next few months,” says Olivier Aguillon. “It celebrates what Safran Nacelles does and how our site in particular is involved in innovating and pioneering the aircraft of the future. “
Thematics
