The Customer
The Brunswick Corporation was founded in Ohio in 1845 by 16-year old Swiss immigrant John Brunswick. Over its 175-year history, the company has manufactured a wide variety of products, from bowling balls to phonographs, and now Brunswick’s broad offering of propulsion, parts, accessories, and boats positions it as the global leader in the recreational marine market with $4.1B in sales revenue across 170 markets last year.
Location: 60 participating facilities worldwide
Solution: Utility Bill Management
Benefits: Centralized emissions data, improved sustainability reporting, increased stakeholder satisfaction
The Challenge
As the recreational marine market depends on clean air and water, Brunswick saw an opportunity to differentiate itself to its stakeholders by documenting the good work the company was doing. This work addressed improvement opportunities in energy, environment, products and people, and would eventually be documented in Brunswick’s first enterprise-wide sustainability report, published in March 2020.
But with over 125 facilities in 24 countries, Brunswick recognized the first step toward their goals was to gather all of their resource usage data in one place.
The Solution
Brunswick used Enel X’s Utility Bill Management (UBM) platform to simplify utility invoice processing and track their emissions levels. Because the company has more than 800 different invoices per month across gas, water, electricity, waste handling, and more, Brunswick needed a global platform to track resource consumption for energy and emissions reporting. With more than 60 participating locations, Brunswick uses UBM to collect, validate, and process all of their utility invoices.
Benefits
Centralized Platform for Emissions Visibility
With invoice data, Brunswick was able to determine its baseline scope 1 and scope 2 GHG emissions levels, a complex but crucial first step toward identifying emissions reduction activities. Brunswick could then analyze emissions by region and use this data to prioritize certain facilities.The platform also gave them site-level cost and consumption data to use in planning and analysis.
Workshops Help Define Path to Targets
Brunswick has created a lofty goal: to shift to 50% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Enel X held a sustainability workshop with Brunswick’s senior leadership to analyze the cost and availability of renewable energy products in each region. The company is looking into more sophisticated instruments like PPAs, and analyzing these projects using information from UBM.
Increased Stakeholder Satisfaction
The program has been embraced internally by employeesat Brunswick. And shareholders, as rated through proxy advisory services, have been extremely satisfied—its rating on environmental and social services increased by 50% in the weeks following its latest environmental report.
Published Corporate Sustainability Report
Brunswick used the emissions data they collected to create its 2019 Sustainability Report. The document goes into detail on Brunswick’s efforts in environmental, social and governance performance.
Solar panels at Mercury Marine’s regional headquarters in Belgium produce nearly 460,000 kW. Photos courtesy of Brunswick.
