Mercury Wins Awards for Sustainable Practices

Mercury Marine received two awards from the Wisconsin Sustainable Business Council (WSBC) during its Sustainable Business Awards Ceremony. Mercury Marine was honored with the Sustainable Process Award for several sustainable practices in the company’s process of using aluminum for manufacturing outboard marine engine blocks.

“We’re certainly not the only manufacturer to use aluminum in building engine blocks but, as this award attests, Mercury does stand out in how we strive to be environmentally responsible and derive the maximum sustainable benefit from our use of this material,” said Scott Louks, Mercury sustainability manager.

According to Louks, who received the award at this evening’s ceremony, Mercury’s sustainable process for using aluminum includes the following benefits:

• Mercury uses only recycled sources of aluminum instead of prime aluminum derived from mined bauxite ore. Discarded vehicle wheels, wiring and scrap from Brunswick Boat Group operations, among other sources, are melted and purified for use in Mercury’s castings.
• The use of recycled aluminum saves energy. The energy required to melt aluminum scrap is approximately only five percent of that required to create primary aluminum from bauxite ore.
• Recycling aluminum emits only five percent of the greenhouse gas emitted in primary aluminum production.
• Mercury uses an innovative technique to use less energy in the melting of recycled aluminum. The company redirects heat exhaust generated from melting aluminum through a stack‑heating device that preheats solid aluminum scrap that is waiting its turn to be melted in the furnace. This preheating process saves Mercury 20 percent of the natural gas it would otherwise use to melt scrap aluminum. This equates to approximately nine billion BTUs of energy saved each year. For context, that’s the energy represented by nearly 73,000 gallons of gasoline.
• Mercury uses patented aluminum alloys and an award‑winning die‑casting process to create engine blocks that weigh less and use less raw material without sacrificing durability and performance. The die‑casting process that Mercury uses for these engine blocks won the 2018 Casting of the Year Award in the “Over 10 Pounds” category for the sophistication of the engine block design and the execution of the die casting. Using less raw material for the casting means conserved aluminum resources.
• The lightweight design of Mercury’s engine castings also translates into a final product with superior fuel‑efficiency. Mercury’s outboard engines built on its new V6 and V8 platforms demonstrate the best fuel‑efficiency in their respective classes. Less fuel burn means less emissions, and Mercury’s outboards carry a three‑star, “ultra‑low emissions” rating from the California Air Resources Board (CARB). Consequently, Mercury’s sustainable use of aluminum results in more sustainable products that are kinder to the environment.

For the ninth consecutive year, Mercury Marine also earned a Green Masters designation from the WSBC. Mercury achieved a score within the top 20 percent of all applicants with a score well above the minimum requirements needed to earn the designation.

The Green Masters Program measures companies on a broad range of sustainability categories ranging from energy and water conservation to waste management, community outreach and education. In addition, companies are measured on transportation, supply chain, workforce and governance.

WSBC’s Green Masters Program requires applicants to describe specifically those sustainable business practices and initiatives that the applying organization had undertaken in the past year, and to show improvement over prior years. Consequently, organizations are challenged to implement new initiatives and report further progress each year.