5 years ahead of plan: Nidec accelerates its path to carbon neutrality at another site

With the Beijing unit reaching neutrality, building on Brazil’s first milestone and with new campuses designed for the future, Nidec confirms its commitment to sustainability

Nidec Appliance, Commercial and Industrial Motors (ACIM) Business Unit announced that its Beijing facility achieved carbon neutrality, five years ahead of the company’s original 2030 target. This result is the culmination of a comprehensive energy transition strategy supported by years of continuous reductions, technical innovation, and responsible management of remaining emissions.

The Beijing campus, operating since 1995, produces compressors for both local and global markets. The site is also certified under ISO 50001, ensuring structured energy management, and raising awareness throughout the supply chain, including local suppliers. Over the years, it has progressively reduced electricity and natural gas consumption, aligning with national carbon management policies and embedding a culture of efficiency.

Beijing unit path towards carbon neutrality included a wide portfolio of projects, such as:

• High-efficiency air compressors implementation, reducing energy consumption by 34% and saving over 3,000 MWh annually
• Compressed air system optimization, lowering pressure and reducing energy consumption by 7%
• Lighting upgrade, doubling brightness from 260 to 500 lux while limiting energy consumption
• Use of waste-heat recovery instead of natural gas, significantly reducing pollutant
• Introduction of advanced painting devices, further lowering methane emissions and increasing efficiency of burning of natural gas

This journey was not without challenges. Since energy consumption is tied to production demand, when dealing with bigger volumes, the efforts were in the sense of keeping it stable by relying on measures such as the ones described above. At the same time, initiatives such as the introduction of a new wastewater treatment machine, temporarily increased emissions but ultimately delivered added value in terms of safety. Balancing these trade-offs, choosing the right direction, and acting strategically to close the gap were key lessons learned.

Lastly, all this substantial effort to reduce gas and energy consumption was then complemented by the acquisition of verified carbon credits, ensuring that the remaining emissions were responsibly balanced and that the overall neutrality target was credibly achieved.

The Beijing milestone also paves the way for Qingdao, another city where ACIM Business Unit is present in China and where, last July, a new industrial park was inaugurated. Backed by the local government, the campus embeds advanced sustainability standards and has an internal action plan in place to become the next location reaching neutrality.

The ACIM Business Unit journey had already delivered results in 2024, when the Joinville plant in Brazil became the very first facility across Nidec Corporation to achieve carbon neutrality, a certification that was renewed last week for the second consecutive time. That success set a precedent for both the Business Unit and the entire group, proving that neutrality in operations is possible to be reached and verified.

"Achieving carbon neutrality in Beijing five years ahead of schedule shows how vision and disciplined execution can reshape industry. From Brazil, where our journey delivered results, to Beijing, and to the other units we will develop, every step demonstrates that ambition can become measurable progress. Empowering Movement, which is ACIM’s tagline, is exactly about that: enabling society and economies to grow responsibly, turning sustainability from a goal into a standard and from a standard into a competitive advantage" affirms Katia Drusian, CEO of ACIM, one of the largest Business Unit in terms of sales of Nidec Corporation.

ACIM is expanding this roadmap worldwide, driving forward its 2030 sustainability goals: carbon neutrality across all operations, enabling a one-gigaton reduction in its customers’ carbon footprint (equivalent to the annual emissions of Brazil, Italy and France)*, engaging key suppliers in environmental, social and governance self-assessment, and increasing female representation in leadership positions to at least 25 percent.

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Nidec Appliance, Commercial and Industrial Motors (ACIM) Business Unit

Nidec Appliance, Commercial and Industrial Motors (ACIM) is a Business Unit of the Appliance Automotive Division (AAD) composed of two Platforms: Global Appliance (GA) and Commercial & Industrial (C&I). ACIM is one of the largest Business Units in terms of sales inside Nidec Group, with approximately 18,000 employees and more than 30 manufacturing sites in 25 countries. ACIM offers a product portfolio such as compressors, condensing units, and motors for home and commercial appliances, as well as motors and electronic drives for commercial, residential, industrial, and utilities applications. This comprehensive set of solutions is characterized by high standards of quality and energy efficiency that delivers innovation at the service of sustainability.

*2022 data, source: Our World in Data