04 Sustainability Statement Water and marine resources (E3) 4.4 WATER AND MARINE RESOURCES (E3) Three questions for Guillaume Ayrignac, Vice President, Manufacturing Performance “Fair, sustainable water use is an important challenge for our Group, to secure the long-term viability of our operations in water-stressed regions.” What makes the 2050 objective of eliminating all impacts on water availability for local communities such a challenge? This is indeed a major issue, because it’s about focusing on the natural water cycle to attenuate disruptions from our operations, and we know that only 1% of all freshwater on Earth is actually accessible to us. That’s why, to ensure water availability, the major challenge is to translate our objective into precise water withdrawal and quality targets aligned with the watersheds where we operate. For that, we absolutely need granular knowledge of hydrological conditions in the watershed and its ability to support withdrawals, use and discharges. To do so, we must: n strengthen our expertise and work in concert with all the stakeholders in each local economic community and water basin to optimize, recycle and equitably share available water resources; n develop nature-based and regenerative hydrology solutions, enabling us to become impact-neutral in the water basins where we operate; n deepen our understanding of water availability issues in the value chain, including water-stress risks at our suppliers. How can water-related risks impact Michelin’s production plants? Water cycle disruptions feed through to alternating risks of droughts, high water and floods. And everywhere in the world, water supply is becoming a major issue that can restrict and sometimes shut down operations. At Group level, an internal water price, multiplied by the local water-stress coefficient, is a key parameter in our capital spending decisions. This tends to encourage water-saving projects, particularly in the most at-risk regions. We have defined ambitious targets for reducing water withdrawals by our production and R&D sites. We are also deploying a solid, result-oriented roadmap on each site, to support judicious water consumption in the host community and meet the needs expressed by external stakeholders. How is the Group progressing on its 2030 commitment to reduce water withdrawals by 33% compared with 2019, weighted for each site’s water-stress coefficient? Group-wide, we’ve already cut water withdrawals by more than 15%, weighted for each site’s water stress coefficient, compared with our target of 33% (metric: water-stress coefficient multiplied by cubic meters of water withdrawn per tonne of semi-finished and finished product). We remain highly confident in our ability to sustain this progress in the years ahead and to hit our target. To do so, we’re pursuing a robust, financially supported program, built around a team of experts to support the implementation of projects playing a critical role in meeting our objectives. We’re also instilling best practices in close collaboration with outside partners, developing new solutions based on scholarly and bibliographical studies, and working with local associations and partners to train all our employees and raise their awareness, for example through conferences and local sensitivity campaigns. 231 2024 UNIVERSAL REGISTRATION DOCUMENT_MICHELIN
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