Operations

Procurement & Logistics

At Axalta, sustainability extends across our value chain, starting with our suppliers. We purchase the materials used directly in the production of our coatings as well as the goods and services that support our operations. Our Procurement team contracts and establishes strategic relationships with suppliers that are aligned with our values and commitment to quality.

Axalta’s Procurement department manages a diverse network of global suppliers across four major areas: raw materials, packaging, logistics, and indirect materials and services. Our suppliers are selected using a framework that represents their performance on quality, service, technology, and price. Through this framework, we strive to ensure that everything that we buy delivers the right outcomes for our end customers, business partners, and other stakeholders.

Compliance

As part of the contracting process, Procurement works to ensure that our suppliers are in compliance with all relevant laws and regulations, including environmental and labor legislation and standards. Our suppliers must ensure compliance with TCSA, REACH, legislation on PCBs, and other relevant environmental requirements. Additionally, suppliers must ensure compliance related to anti-discrimination, minimum age of employment, forced labor, working conditions, and all other industry codes and standards that are applicable to our suppliers in their performance under the agreements.

In 2016, Axalta introduced a Supplier Code of Conduct that puts our suppliers on notice regarding our expectations regarding compliance with laws and regulations, the protection of fundamental human rights, and the treatment of people. The latter requires adherence to labor practices that prohibit the use of child labor and forced labor. For more information, review our Code.

Supplier Diversity

Axalta has also established a supplier diversity program that is designed to enable small businesses and those owned by minorities, women, veterans, and the disabled to fully participate as an integral part of our supply chain in the United States and Canada. Engaging a diverse pool of suppliers helps strengthen our communities and provides commercial opportunities for a wide array of businesses. Axalta benefits, in turn, as we gain understanding from suppliers who bring different perspectives and ideas to our operations. Our customers reap the benefits by purchasing Axalta products and services that reflect the best that the community can offer.

Case Studies

Double-decker Trucks Reduce Congestion in Europe

A key part of Axalta’s distribution system for our refinish products in Europe relies on a major hub in Genk, Belgium that supports the company’s logistics and supply chain network. The product shipments that run between Axalta manufacturing facilities in Western Europe and this key point of distribution in Genk is a major source of trucking miles driven and contributes to our overall carbon footprint. In an effort to reduce the impact on the environment and obtain a more financially sustainable solution, we identified an opportunity to utilize double-decker shuttle trailers that could maximize the payload sent between the affected shipping lanes. The switch decreased the number of truckloads required per year by 1,750, which resulted in an estimated reduction of 600 tons of CO2 per year.

Per Year

Double-decker Trucks Reduce Congestion in Europe

Fuel-efficient Fleet Reduces CO2 Emissions

Axalta maintains a fleet of vehicles in North America used by our national sales force to visit customers who are located in geographically dispersed and often remote locations. Dominated largely by pick-up trucks that were not fuel efficient, the legacy fleet was having a negative impact on the company’s carbon footprint. To improve efficiency and reduce carbon emissions, Axalta converted the fleet to fuel-efficient sedans that would meet the needs of the sales force while also significantly improving Axalta’s environmental impact. Between 2014 and early 2016, nearly 100 percent of the fleet migrated to the more fuel-efficient model resulting in a projected 20 percent reduction in CO2 emissions — equivalent to more than 1,000 tons of CO2.

2014 - early 2016

Fuel-efficient Fleet Reduces CO2 Emissions