Good morning. Our event will feature presentations in Portuguese and English. Simultaneous translation is available in the Zoom tool panel. The slides will be in English, but we offer a link to download the content in Portuguese in the chat. Questions can be sent via chat throughout the presentation. At the end, we will have an answer session. Have a great event.
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Good morning. I apologize because we had a technical issue with the simultaneous interpretation and we will restart the event.
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Again, with the floor, we have Mara Limongi and then the President of Iochpe-Maxion. Investor Day.
Welcome to the Investor Day. It's great pleasure for APIMEC to participate in this program, this 22-year partnership.
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Good morning and welcome. It's a pleasure to share some aspects of our results in the first nine months of 2021, and talk about strategies, the business strategies of the company. To start our presentation, in slide number one, we talk about the Iochpe-Maxion. It's a company that's more than 100 years old. We produce more than 53 million wheels a year, with an average of the last 5 years. With structural components, we are leaders in the Americas. We have a strategy aligned with the tendencies and transformations of the auto industry. We are the greatest wheel producer in the world. We are focused in innovation and sustainable development. We have 32 plants in 14 countries, with more than 17,000 employees in 49 nationalities.
Through the first 9 months of 2021, we've had a net income of BRL 9.9 billion and adjusted EBITDA of BRL 1.5 billion. Our global presence is one of the aspects that are key for our diversification. In addition to our presence in the countries and that we act directly with production, as we can see on the map here, we attend the greatest factories in our aftermarket clients in the main markets in the world. Our main production centers in the world is Brazil, Mexico, Czech Republic, Turkey and India. We have plants in other countries such as China, Thailand, South Africa, Spain, Germany, United States, Argentina, and Uruguay. The diversification we can see in our global presence is also seen through our products. We produce steel wheels for commercial vehicles and farming machines. We produce steel and aluminum for light vehicles.
We produce stamps for light vehicles and commercial vehicles, and we produce chassis for commercial vehicles. We are the biggest producers of steel wheels for commercial vehicles in the world, with a global participation, excluding China, of 37%. Our participation in the Americas is 43%. Our participation in Europe is 47% in the steel wheels for commercial vehicle segment. We are the biggest producer of steel wheels for light vehicles with a global participation of 24%. Our participation in the Americas is 50%, and our participation in Europe is 36%. We are among the top 10 producers of aluminum wheels for light vehicles in the world. We are the biggest producer for commercial vehicles in America with participation of 76% in this market. Our history proves the growth and resilience of our business.
We started operations in 1918 in the wood section in Brazil. In the 1940s, we started financial activities and industrial activities. Through the 1990s, we focused more in industrial activities, what we do today, and these are auto wheels and structural components. We have a class of actions and we are in the market since 2018. From this time, we started diversification globally with the construction of our first steel wheel for commercial vehicles plant in China. Through acquisitions, we created the footprint that we have today. Through the last 10 years, we have organically grown in the main markets we act in. We have two steel wheel plants in India that we already had. We built our first aluminum wheel plant in India in 2019.
The construction is ongoing for the aluminum wheels factory in China through 2021. Innovation is in our DNA. Through the years, we have worked tirelessly in the weight reduction of our products, as we can see in the examples shown in this slide. Reduced Rim Technology, that is a technology to reduce weight in the aluminum wheels, is something that we are already producing in different factories in the world. We work continuously in the reduction of weight of our steel wheels, as we can see in the reduction of more than 20% of steel wheels weight without compromising the resistance of the product. Especially when we talk about wheels for light vehicles, this is key. We have a design capability that is very important for us to offer the best solutions for the factories and for our clients all over the world.
We have the VersaStyle technology that is a steel wheel that has the appearance of aluminum wheel, combining resistance, cost, and appearance in the same design. We are very focused in the transformation of technology and mobility all over the world. We have the Smart Wheel technology that can capture data of temperature, pressure, and other information for the vehicle and use this data for diagnostics or for maintenance of the vehicles. We have partnerships with startups and with established companies, as you can see in this slide, with the startup VrrOOM, and the development of our Flexible Wheel developed in partnership with Michelin. In the structural component area, we also have chassis for electric vehicles and also aluminum parts for buses. So we can get durability, resistance, and reduction of weight and competitive cost for our products. Our long-term customer relationships.
In this slide, we can see that our main ten clients represent 70% of the income of the company. We can see that we have operations all over the world, having business with the main factories in Europe, in North America, in Asia. We also work with the trailers and aftermarket segments, which are important parts of our business, especially in the European market. Now let's give the floor to Luiz, so he can continue with some of the main highlights in the first 9 months of 2021.
In slide number 9, we have the main highlights. We had a net revenue of BRL 9.9 million, with an increase of 67% versus the first 9 months of 2020.
Our gross profit reached BRL 1.32 million with a 13.4% gross margin and a BRL 443 million net income. With adjusted EBITDA, we had BRL 1.460 million with a 14.8% margin. We're not considering non-recurring effects. With the net debt adjusted EBITDA of 2.66 times reduction compared to third quarter of 2020. In slide 10, we have a forecast for light and commercial vehicles. On the left-hand side, we have the graph for light vehicles. Under the graph, we have the highlight of that is without the participation of China, because China is not so representative in our business. In light vehicles through 2021, it's successive downward revisions due to the semiconductor crisis that affect all the automotive industry.
We still have a perspective of growth for the next years for the auto industry. On the right-hand side, we have commercial vehicles. Under the graph, we also have the numbers excluding China. As we can see, the commercial vehicles part here shows a very positive scenario in 2021 because this category of vehicles has less exposure to the semiconductor crisis. The perspective here is also to grow in the next years. Slide number 11, we have revenue by region with a highlight for South America that grew 126.6%, reaching 29.1% of the total revenue of the company. The strong performance of commercial vehicles is a factor that explains this behavior. Also highlight for North America with a growth of 54%, explained by the strong performance of the structural components division.
Asia, finally, it had a growth of 114%. The commercial wheel revenue growth in our India and China operations contributed for this result. The aluminum plant in India also contributes to the growth of this region. In our net operating revenue by product, we have a growth in structural components for commercial vehicles. Our diversified business model explains this growth of these two products. On the revenue by segment, we had 96% of growth in commercial vehicles. This growth reached 45% of the total revenue in the first nine months of 2021. The strong performance in the best in the main areas of action, the company explains this growth. On slide number 14, we have the revenue by division, and we had a growth of 106% in the structural components.
This reached 24% of the total revenue of the company. The exposure is the main factor for the growth of this division. Slide 15, we have the net income of BRL 443 million, a reversion related to the loss that we've had in the first nine months of 2020. On the right-hand side, we have the adjusted EBITDA, which reached to BRL 1.5 billion and a margin of 14.8%. The adjusted EBITDA in the first nine months of 2021 was favorably impacted by the sale of the land in the Akron plant in the U.S. and exclusion of ICMS in the calculation basis. If we don't consider these two positive effects, the EBITDA would have been BRL 1.2 billion in the first nine months of 2021, with a margin of 12.5%.
Now I give the floor to Élcio Ito, which will detail the net debt and leverage of the company.
Thank you. Thank you, Luiz. Good morning, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here with you today. Moving on with the figures, I'd like to reinforce some balance sheet aspects. Regarding leverage, it is much because of the pandemic and the impacts on the second quarter, but also the recovery of the market in a sequence. In 2021, we've also seen a gradual consistent increase in the leverage in 2.66 times. We want to continue. We do have a leverage of more than 2 times. Next slide is on the company's debt profile. We clearly see that more than half of the debt is in foreign currency. The goal is the relevance of the cash flow generation outside of Brazil. To the right, we see the difference between short and long term.
We see the last year doubled the average term, much because of some variable operations we have. One of them is noteworthy of BRL 6 billion sustainability, the first access to the capital market made by the company. We do have sustainability stamp, where we clearly define our goals of CO2 emissions, and we have set a goal for 2025, and we want to set even longer-term goal. The liability management process is a reality for us. We'll be seeing the market reality and we'll be adapting that as needed, as we deem convenient. We have reimbursed BRL 320 million, which is a seven-year line, and it is available to be accessed by the company by February 2023. After these first considerations for the company, we're moving on to the second part of our event focusing on sustainability.
Marcos is going to continue the event. Over the next few minutes, we'll be talking about the different aspects of our initiatives and strategies for ESG. Environmental, social, and governance aspects. Starting off with our strategy when it comes to ESG. At Iochpe-Maxion our view is to be a global leader in components and automotive systems with sustainable growth through innovation and inspiring people to come together with us in having a better automotive world. Changing the world is not enough. We also have to step up our dedication to protect, including health. Of course, that the fight against COVID-19 is not over, but it has changed us. It has strengthened even more the focus on well-being and the health of our employees. Such concern with people has been guiding us for many, many years. It's the same for our planet.
Climate changes are a priority for all industries, and automotive industry is taking over the responsibility for its impact. There are plenty of solutions available when we see electro-mobility and shared mobility, autonomous driving and connected vehicles. However, with electrification of engines, which is the highest, I mean, the highest contributor for carbon is not going to be vehicles, but the materials that compose the vehicles. Iochpe-Maxion is aware and has been approaching the environmental issues for decades now, not because we had to do it, but because we have an eye on our impact in society and environment. We have a holistic view of the whole value chain, and we take our responsibility seriously when it comes to embracing sustainable practices and mitigating or minimizing the environmental impact of our actions.
We always take our obligation to serve clients seriously, creating safe jobs for our employees and nurturing long-term relationships with our suppliers. Today, more than ever, the sustainability issue is a priority. We know that our investors are more and more aware of the environmental performance, which is crucial, and also for governance and the way to mitigate risk and generate sustainable financial return over time. We would like to share our declaration of sustainability. As you can see on this slide, the success of our business depends on the decisions and actions we take today, and the commitments that we set to help protect our future. By leading with a focus on innovation, competitiveness, and sustainability, we protect the environment, the health and security of our employees, clients, suppliers, and global communities, which we call home.
We make an effort to build and develop an inclusive culture that encourages, supports, and celebrates diversity. Wherever we operate, our business practices follow the highest ethical standards, determined to reach carbon neutrality by 2040. We can see our roadmap to reduce carbon emissions. We have a commitment to reach a reduction of 40% in CO2 emissions by 2025. A commitment to reach a 70% CO2 reduction by 2030, and reach carbon neutrality by 2040. Over the next minutes, our team is going to share our long-term view with realistic objectives on short- and mid-term basis, sharing some successful cases that demonstrate our initiatives, our ESG initiatives in action. I would like. Now we're going to see videos of the presidents of the wheels division, Maxion Wheels, and structural components, Maxion Structural Components.
The more detailed view on Maxion's focus is sustainability in the operational areas.
Hello, good morning, good afternoon, to all of you. Thank you for joining the call. As Marcos said, we've been working on what we now call sustainability already for decades, also at Maxion Wheels. What I think is different today though, the necessity to do it, not only the option, but the necessity and also the speed that we need to accomplish things nowadays. I think in Maxion Wheels, we actually see this as a huge opportunity. On the one hand, you know, to do the right thing for the planet, that's a nice thing to do and a very necessary thing to do anyway. Good to work on.
On the other hand, we believe that in Maxion Wheels, we can actually turn this sustainability momentum into an opportunity, into a competitive advantage, for us. Let me explain the story regarding Maxion Wheels, splitting it up, basically in two pieces. On the one hand, we have a process and many people are working on that, and that's a little bit more common between companies, between industries. On the other hand, there's product, which of course is a little bit more industry specific and company specific. We think we have an interesting story to tell there, as well. Let me start with the process.
You know, there are many ways to improve processes, but basically for us, there's three things here that I believe lead the way when we talk about process improvement and sustainability. First of all, of course, you got your existing processes, and it is our aim to make these faster and more efficient. You know, in that respect, I'm very happy to say that in 2021, we will have the best year ever when it comes to process improvement, especially with a focus on waste reduction and energy reduction. That's something that very much helps when we talk about sustainability. I'm very proud of the Maxion Wheels team for accomplishing that.
I'm also, you know, already excited by the fact that I think we're well prepared to beat this record again in 2022. Of course, we also work on new processes and in this respect, people talk a lot about renewable energy, and that's not new in the world. That's not new for Maxion Wheels. Also here, I'm happy to say that we're gearing up. And so in 2022, we will be starting first solar energy projects in three of our facilities in different parts of the world. One is in Saraburi, Thailand, the other one in Johannesburg, South Africa, and the last one in 2022 in Manisa, in Turkey.
The last pillar, the third pillar that I think we're focusing most on when we talk sustainability and process, is working together with our suppliers. Of course, all of our suppliers are working on sustainability as well, but the fact that we really truly partner with them and try to improve their work helps our processes most is something that I think will make a difference here for us. One example that I wanna mention in that respect is the so-called usage of secondary aluminum. In this respect, I talk about aluminum recycling in our aluminum wheel plants.
So far, you know, we have been using quite a bit of our secondary aluminum, but recently we invested significant amounts of money in making sure that all of our aluminum plants around the world can recycle all of our aluminum waste. Even the tiniest bits that are being machined off, we reuse them now. Of course, you know, with the metal price being so high, you know, the returns on those investments are pretty exciting. Also from a sustainability point of view, of course, this is a very good thing to have. That's a very good example, I think, of working with suppliers that delivers the equipment to make that happen.
Overall, I think, you know, let's keep in mind, Maxion Wheels is by far the most global wheel supplier in the world. We believe that, you know, sharing those ideas and sharing those practices that help us in improving sustainability from all over the world, that will and should give us a competitive advantage over our competitors. Far on the process side. Let's go to the product side, where I think we have an exciting story as well. You know, I don't wanna talk too much about new mobility and electrification and autonomous, et cetera. It's very important, but we all know that. Rather, you know, I would like to talk about what it means for Maxion Wheels.
You may say, "You know, doesn't really mean anything because, you know, electrified or not, you know, all these cars, all these vehicles, they all have wheels anyway." That's true and that's good, and by the way, we like that very much. Of course, the more interesting question that we pose ourselves is, you know, what kind of wheels? When we talk about that, I think it's important to keep in mind that, again, Maxion Wheels is the only large global wheel manufacturer that has both steel wheels and aluminum wheels in its portfolio. We think that's important, very important from a product offering point of view.
Not only, but also because there's a very significant CO2 emission difference between those two product offerings. Basically, when we look at the future of consumer preference, we see two paths. One is individual ownership, private ownership, and on the other hand, you will have shared ownership. Now, when we talk about individual ownership, of course, styling is very important, and wheels play a very significant role in that. We believe that in this segment, aluminum wheels will be predominant, not only in the near future, but also a little bit further out, because it gives the largest freedom in styling to make a wheel in aluminum.
You know, that being said, I think even in this segment, you know, for OEM customers that have a little bit bigger need for a sustainability improvement, you know, they could be considering steel wheels. Even, you know, greener conscience end consumers, they could demand for these wheels even in this segment. Predominantly, this segment will remain aluminum wheels. On the other hand, you know, when you talk about shared vehicles, you know, the urban shared vehicles, the robotaxis, et cetera, of course, styling is not so important. But reliability, cost efficiency, safety, comfort, but also sustainability will play a much bigger role.
If we then keep in mind that, you know, a same sized wheel, steel or aluminum, is about the same weight nowadays, no weight difference between steel and aluminum. But, you know, the steel wheel is 3-5 times cheaper than the aluminum wheel, and the steel wheel has 5-10 times less carbon emission than aluminum, depending on, you know, which steel or which aluminum you buy and you use where. Therefore, we believe in this segment of shared vehicles, the need or the demand for steel wheels for passenger cars, you know, will become more important compared to what it has been maybe in the last 10 years overall in the passenger car vehicle segment.
Again, let's keep in mind that Maxion Wheels is the largest player in the world when it comes to passenger car steel wheels, for that segment. Very important, very exciting for us. Now, besides cost and styling and CO₂, et cetera, one thing that also plays a role, going forward when we talk about sustainability, you know, the most of course is range. Very important for electrical vehicles. Anyway, important, but especially for electrical vehicles. When you look today at various websites from OEMs, there are some very important OEMs that are making a lot of noise about, you know, the difference a wheel and a tire can make on the range of a vehicle.
You talk about 10%-15% difference in range, 300 or 350 km. That's huge. That's super interesting for us as a global wheel manufacturer. No surprise that we're working very hard with our partners, with suppliers, with our customers. Among our plans, of course, to have the best possible product offering available. Now, one segment that we didn't talk about yet, though, but that is a very important segment for the company, also for Maxion Wheels, is trucks. In this segment, of course, you know, let's keep in mind again, Maxion Wheels is by far the largest supplier of wheels for trucks.
In this segment, of course, styling is not so important. On the other hand, you know, costs and efficiency and also more and more range are very important. I'm happy to tell you that recently we have been very much recognized by our customers for having the lightest range of steel wheels available in the global market. We have been growing our market share in a growing market, you know, trend towards better technology and cost-optimized wheels and also wheels with a larger range. I think we're very well positioned in this segment to continue to grow and to capture the opportunities that this segment has been offering and will be offering to us. I would like to say thank you for your attention. I hope it was interesting.
I hope it gave you a little bit of a glance into what we believe is the exciting role of Maxion Wheels within sustainability in automotive. Thank you very much. Take care, and bye-bye.
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[Non-English content ] Great insights and messages here from our Maxion presidents. Before getting into the three pillars and providing the external view, I would like to work with you on the ESG ratings associated with Ioche-Maxion. The first relevant point here is that we have different methodologies applied by different organizations on the same topic, so we may see some divergences regarding the results.The first rating I would like to mention is the CDP. It is a non-profit organization that has been operating for 20 years in global publishing in companies, cities, regions, and countries. We have indicators that are recognized by the global industry, and our main customers such as Mercedes, GM, and Ford. They usee these to keep track ou revolutions and activities, and also for naming of new programs.
This indicator use for 10 years. We have three dimensions. One is not applied to us. The main ones are the climate change, and we have a B-minus grade as we had in the last report. Comparing with the global average of D score, we have some points, some grades that are over benchmark. On water security, we have a B grade, which is equal or higher than the benchmark. We have other ratings, and to be completely transparent, we've had them here so we can understand. Some are more recent that have been MSCI. We are keeping track in a more recent manner to understand better the different methodologies and to approach it in two ways, higher transparency in some topics and work on other potential improvements.
We are almost at the end of the update, but we haven't published it, we haven't disclosed anything of these processes. This is important so we can have some transparency in these processes to understand the improvement opportunities and incorporate in our process of continuous improvement in all these aspects. This is a journey, not a race, and we can continue to improve. We have the ratings here. We are on market average, and we have several improvement opportunities. Now let's effectively go in the pillars, starting with environment, and I'll give the floor to Oliver Schwank. He's the Director of Sustainability. He's based in Germany. For people who have the. You can choose the Portuguese language.
Hello from my side as well. I will now walk you through the environmental pillar of our sustainability strategy. I think if we look a few years back and we've seen how the environmental part played out at that time, we saw that it was only really the part that was important on the plant level, where we had our operational excellence projects going on with a little support from the corporate safety and sustainability department. This really evolved or changed over the last years, and we now see that the environmental strategy is really a complete company strategy, where all the different areas and functions of our company are deeply involved in. It's through the operating units as well as the global safety and environmental teams. It's a supply chain together with our suppliers.
It's the operational excellence and finance team, as well as the sales teams in a very good connection to our customers. As you've seen in the presentation before from Marcos and Pieter Klinkers, on our way to become a carbon neutral company until the year 2040, we have as well included all the different areas into our strategy. Starting with our production, where we really are working on efficiency projects going forward, where we see how we can find innovative solution, how to reduce the carbon footprint of our operations and as well, the own generation and the purchasing of renewable energy, electricity and gas sources are part of this.
Now one very important part of our strategy is the close relationship to our suppliers, where we really have a deep look started last year with our raw material suppliers on the aluminum and steel side, where we are really working closely together in projects to make sure that for the future we have the right raw material available to meet our targets and as well to meet the customer needs. This goes further down into all the support processes like the logistics, as well as in business travel, we started a project where we are offsetting the business travel CO2 emissions. Another pilot project we launched last year was really an exchange from our company car fleet in our location in Königswinter in Germany.
That was the pilot project where we are exchanging the company cars from combustion engine cars to electrical cars going forward. As well, like Pieter Klinkers and Renato showed in their presentations as well on the product side, we are very engaged to help our customers to achieve their CO2 targets with lightweight products and our big product portfolio. Now, when you look into the results of our greenhouse gas emissions there, we talk about the CO2. Since our baseline year, 2019, you see a very slight increase in the year 2020 that was mainly driven by the extraordinary situation from the pandemic, where we saw really huge volume drops and as well the mix change so that we were operating our units near the baseline of the energy consumption. That's what you will see if you look into the intensity-based target.
If it would have been a normal year with normal volumes last year, it would have been a reduction between 5%-7% overall last year. The absolute emissions there you can see is dropped as well by 17%. From that perspective, we are really on a good way going forward to achieve our 2025 and our 2030 target. To make sure that our strategy really works to meet our targets, to meet the customer targets, it's really we are looking into at the moment over 200 CO2 reduction projects globally in both divisions, where we have a monthly follow-up with all the operation units to see how the projects are working out, if we are heading in the right direction.
To make this a little bit easier and better, we will implement starting next year, in January next year, a software tool that helps us really to track those projects and to track the numbers on a live basis. To show you a few examples of the 200 projects we selected. For example, this one out of the Turkish aluminum plant in Manisa, where we exchanged the power heater controllers throughout the plant and exchanged it by the newest version of it. With this, we really saw a 5% energy reduction throughout the plant. You can see it seems a quite small project for it, but we really had a huge impact on our CO2 footprint of our plant in Manisa. You've seen that Pieter Klinkers was talking about our solar energy projects throughout the world.
At the moment, we are investigating it for 11 of our global plants. For three plants, we will implement it next year. Here in Thailand, you can see now in a short video where we just started the construction of the project. One other topic we are working on since the beginning of this year is the life cycle analysis of our products on the Maxion Wheels side. We started this project together with our customers to really show the overview from a cradle-to-gate analysis, so from the raw material processes over transport, our production until our product arrives at the customer site. There you can see really as an example, we are showing now on that slide that we have a very huge impact from the raw material. The second-largest impact is from our own production.
As you see here from the transport, for example, this takes into account that we are producing our wheels regionally for our customers in the region and not transporting it in between continents, for example, because then you would see a way higher bar on that side. What you can as well very well see on this slide is the difference between a normal steel wheel and a normal cast aluminum wheel, which in this case, it's around six times more CO2 during the creation of a aluminum wheel compared to a steel wheel here. Our target is now to conclude all those life cycle analyses that we have globally for all product groups until the end of 2022.
As we are now went through all the emission-related CO2 reduction topics, which is the main topic at the moment on the sustainability side, I now want to show you a little bit the other as well important topics from the environmental part. The fresh water usage, for example. There we are putting a very high effort into it to reduce this number year by year. As you see, it was a very successful strategy so far, even though our processes are getting more and more complex with new steps are added to the process like the RRT and the flow forming process, and as well, painting, which is increasing the need of water usage. Through our really reuse of water strategy and our wastewater treatment plants, we can keep the reduction year by year so far.
As well for this, I want to show you a video of a project out of our plant in Limeira in Brazil, which as well is an award-winning project. Yeah. You will now see a video explaining a little bit about the project. Okay. Now we come to the next project, which is as well-
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Now we will head to the third main topic we have on the environmental side with the waste reduction. The landfill waste reduction or the increase of the recycling rate of our waste globally. There you can see as well that we are on the right way. We are reducing this number every year. This is really a 13% reduction we have since 2018, which as well, due to legislation, is quite different from country to country. For example, we are very proud to show that we have a plant in Germany, in Königswinter, which is reusing more than 99% of the waste. We have a landfill rate from under 1%, which is really an outstanding performance there. When we look further on in the next years, we have a plan to reduce this further.
With the opportunities we see, the main opportunities we see at the moment is really in the reuse of packaging material, where we are working on as well in a very close collaboration with our customers globally. To show you that one project we had in the last year there in our Pune plant in India, where we were exchanging the painting equipment. Yeah, the old paint guns we had there, we exchanged it to very new sustainable electrostatic paint guns. With this project, we were able to reduce 50% of the paint sludge that we have to landfill every year. Now on the second point of this project, we are working on to find a solution that as well the remaining paint sludge does not need to be landfilled anymore.
We are searching at the moment for opportunities how we can use this going forward. As well, the big topic on the environmental side is the sustainability of our products, which helps our customers, which helps the planet to achieve those targets going forward. Like Pieter Klinkers and Renato showed in their presentation as well through our very big product portfolio and the innovative solutions we have on the market, we are really driving this in close collaboration forward to help to create a sustainable mobility for the future. I will now hand it over to Paulo Márcio to talk about the social pillar of the sustainability.
[Non-English content] Thank you, Oliver. Thank you, everyone. We're gonna talk about the social dimension of our project, our ESG project. The plan is, over the next few slides, we're going to share with you some of our actions that we've been implementing on our company. We have selected some processes, some actions to share with you. First, we would like to share with you that the social dimension is pretty present on the day by day of our plants. We have several actions throughout the year. These actions are connected to what Marcos, Renato, and Peter have discussed during the initial ESG presentation. We do produce with quality, with excellence, but we directly impact the communities. We where we operate in all the dimensions that you can see on the slide: security, environment, community, education, diversity.
Over the next slides, we're going to try and see some examples, so you have a general idea of our actions. We start by sharing the way which all of our employees are able to engage with our social actions. In the Brazilian plants in 2021, we have promoted, in the peak of the pandemic, we saw people struggle to find food to eat. We had a campaign with the company and employees to collect food. We collected 15 tons of food all over Brazil, and we sent those to local institutions to support this hard moment we had in 2021. The pandemic isn't over yet, as said before, but that was a critical moment.
We were able to have an action that shows the engagement and the fine-tuning between what the company and their employees think when it comes to social. The second topic is on inclusion actions of people with disabilities. Our plants worldwide have projects to include people with disabilities. We're gonna have a video of a very successful initiative in our Spain plant, so you get a sense of how we act on social programs for people with disabilities.
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[Non-english content ]. Moving on, still on the social dimension, we change focus to a very important aspect within our company, which is education. We cannot talk about education in the company without talking about the Iochpe Foundation, the institution that the company supports. It's been over 25 years now. The Iochpe Foundation has several social projects, but two of them stand out. The first one is the Instituto Arte na Escola, a project that supports and trains arts teachers in public schools in Brazil in order to encourage arts in Brazilian schools. The other big project is the Formare project, which is one I'll be breaking down the next slide. It makes us proud.
Renato Salum did comment about this project when he as he spoke, but I'd like to bring some more details on the importance of this project for us in the company. The Formare project actually rescues teenagers in risky situations from 16 to 18 years old. We bring them to inside of our plants, the school exists within our plants. The teachers are our employees, and they work, but they work voluntarily to offer knowledge and experience to those that can work in the future. For a year, they are technically trained for the market, but more important than that, they receive full-time education, change their behavior, and integrate themselves in the society quicker and achieve professional success. Over 23,500 youngsters have joined the project throughout the years, and they are now working, have changed their lives and the lives of their families.
They are no longer in a risky situation, and they're now working and helping build a better country. The next slide, we are also still on education. We're gonna talk about Instituto Inmagusa. Renato also commented about that. The Instituto Inmagusa is at our Castaños plant in Mexico. It is a school, a full-time school. We serve children from age eight to 18 years old. They were born to serve the kids of our employees. Because of the excellence of the project, it was expanded to the community we are inserted in. We have now sons of employees, kids of employees in the community, and also form people for a better future. We have a video to illustrate the successful project in Mexico. Another important aspect for us, we have a long journey ahead, is diversity and inclusion.
Our sector is dominated by males, and we have a workforce today that concentrates 92% males and only 8% females. That is a challenge for our company because we have to update this framework in the future. Some projects are ongoing. One of them is a trainee program. We were able to adopt diversity and inclusion as a main pillar in the recruitment process, and we were able to have 50% males and 50% females and also 25% black people that joined this recruitment of our company. The diversity and inclusion project is pretty challenging. We have a whole structure for the future in our organization. I'd like to invite to talk about diversity and inclusion Patricia Lopes. She's the leader of the project within our organization. Thank you. Have a good one.
Thank you, Paulo.
Good morning, everyone. Iochpe is committed to diversity and inclusion. Commitment to operate a global company that offers opportunities that are fair to all employees, thus creating a work culture that values diversity and inclusion. Our goal is to make our company a place where all employees realize professional support that they need to be successful and to not face any barriers regarding race, age, gender, sexual orientation, or any other hindrance based on discrimination. In 2021, we released the unique and united movement that translates the way we do business, and it is critical for our future success. How do we structure ourselves out to make this commitment feasible? We have a global committee that establishes the guidelines of diversity and inclusion.
Our global corporate policy, published in nine languages, establishes the commitment to build a culture in a diverse and inclusive working procedure. We also have trainings to educate and raise awareness about it. Examples are the e-learning for 100% of white collars.
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We have strengthened the talent retention and other stakeholders.
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With such cultures that are different in many countries. In these policies and practices, this is essential for the success of our program.
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As an important part of this journey, we can highlight the governance risk and compliance function in full implementation, the total reform of the Code of Conduct in 2018 and the global deployment in 11 languages for all our units globally.
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The Code of Conduct training for all employees since 2019.
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Other periodic training for specific courses.
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Of course, preventive measures are key and are effective in the risks that we are exposed to.
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A tool that our program shows with excellent results is our reporting channel. We understand that to have this in action, we have an awareness campaign. We saw in the previous slide, we have to continue investing in training and existence of the channel and the direction of the use.
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About D&I. In 2018, it was remodeled to enable the whistleblower to interact with the report. It can be accessed through different ways and is available 24/7. It is open to internal and external ways and anonymity is guaranteed. Everything is documented and to guarantee.
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100% of the denouncements made in the channel are investigated and answered and are reported to the Ethics Committee and to our Statutory Audit Committee.
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The increase in manifestations through time shows the credibility of this channel and how effective it is fighting undesirable behaviors in our organization. I thank you for your attention and I give the floor back to Mara Limongi.
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Thank you for the recognition of this 22 years.
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Let's start the Q&A that will be coordinated by Rodrigo Caraça.
Thank you Marcos. Good morning. We have some questions from the chat here. The first question is from Lucas Marquiori, from BTG Pactual. Can you comment on the Turkey instabilities in politics in managed devaluation and how it affects actual in the pre-pandemic the company talked about increasing the activity and what is the plan right now?'"
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We operate in Turkey since 2012. Almost 10 years now. And before that previous company operated in Turkey. And in this period we have lived different economic and politics movements. And constantly we observed that the sector of exports is still key for the Turkish economy in eventual movements that may occur in politics or in the economic of that country. And right now, its not different.
We see lots of value for Turkish lira around 12 to 13 liter per dollar last weeks. In the short term, its positive for our operations in what we produce in Turkish lira and Euros or dollars and rubles for example and we export for the rest of Europe in Europe. So, this devaluation in short term is because it has positive impactfor us but we know that when currencies lose value in the fast way there are other macroeconomic factors.
One of them is inflation. It has been incremented in the last years and we believe long term there are corrections cost corrections for labour or other percentual costs. It could remove some of this advantage that were talking in the short term. So we observed that our operations in Turkey are very consistent. They are faced to the export market through all these years with micro economics and plotics oscillations. We have never had any interruption of our operations.
We've been able to attend to our customers in a consistent way and Turkey is still one of the countries that are the productive basis of Yashiv Maxim. As i said in the previous presentation, Brazil, Mexico, Czech Republic, Turkey, India our main protected basis for the regions we act in and we believe we will be able to continue to attend our clients in a efficient and competitive way in the next years.
The second question about the strategy for business diversification in the structure component area we have advanced in a very effective way in the last years. In the growth of the structure component sector. We build a stamped factory in Mexico. We started in the end of 2019. We ramp up in 2020. We continued with the ramp up in 2021. With the launching of new products for our clients in North America.
So we continue to expand in our structural component participation in general we have launched new products. There's a rear axle subframe chassis, all this for electrical trucks. We tried to bring the subframe for the North American market.
We also have battery racks chassis for electrical vehicles and we will continue to expand through these years. We have launched new technologies in our factories for structure components through automated processes, robots and automated cells which enables increase in efficiency and to enables to deliver this in a very competitive way.
Through 2021, this behavior is a reflex of the growth of the truck segment in the North American market and the South American market, but also to the addition of new products. As a reference, in the first nine months of last year, the structural components division represented 19% of our net revenue globally. Within the first nine months of this year, it already represents 24%.
The combination of the dynamics and diversification of the company and the new products that we are launching allows us to face these market oscillations in a very effective way. We have three more questions here from Victor Mizusaki from Bradesco BBI.
How does the wheel and tire industry should evolve, and new products can bring consolidation of the sector other than being complementary products? And what's the long-term target in the geographical diversification of income for Iochpe-Maxion? And can we consider that the growth will come from Asia, and this strategy will come from Iochpe-Maxion if we compare to United States and Europe? And the industry for the autonomous car can impact the volume and margin of Iochpe-Maxion in the long term. Thank you for your questions, Victor. I will unite them. I'll try to answer your question that way.
The tendencies of electrification that we have seen in the market, in the automotive market are very clear, and we have seen this in markets such as China, Europe, in North American market, and this growth will eventually happen in the Brazilian market as well. Maybe in a transition speed that is a little distinct for our energy matrix, but this is a reality that will happen worldwide. When we look at our product profile in wheels or structural components, this is very important for the production for electric and autonomous vehicles in the future. For positioning, we see this tendency in change for electrification as something positive for Iochpe-Maxion. Our steel wheels or aluminum wheels and structural components are present in the future vehicles.
We also see an opportunity for growth for new clients as we have observed new businesses in North America, in Europe and Asia with dedicated clients to the electrical sector. We also have the opportunity to add new products and new components and new solutions for our clients with the examples that I mentioned previously, with battery racks or chassis for electric vehicles and other derivatives that can be interesting. When we see the wheels for electrical vehicles, autonomous vehicles, they still need wheels.
The profile of those wheels can be relatively similar or in some cases, with bigger diameter or more or even narrower, so we can produce in our plants and the work we've been doing within the automotive sector internally within the company in partnership with assemblers of our companies, startup companies and established companies, examples we've seen before. It do allow us to understand the direction each company, each member is following and trying to adapt our products, either wheels with tires that we've seen in some plants where we assemble our wheels with third-party tires actually, and that's a solution to be delivered to that client. We also see the trends, the future trends from different wheel profilings with different tire profiles that can make wheels more competitive in the future as well.
As we saw in the presentation, speakers made some specific comments on that aspect. The energy efficiency in the future will be targeted to several factors. Weight is important, but there are dynamic issues that are gotten not only through weight reduction, but through the profile design, the wheel style and the whole joint wheel and tire, the way it is built, the way it is mounted in the vehicles. We are pretty well positioned with our computational technologies or simulation with the experience of our engineers that are aware of the different global market demands, and they can develop those solutions to serve clients not only today, but clients and their needs in the future mobility.
Regarding growth, we have a pretty well-established base to serve our clients in North America, South America, Europe, and we've been growing in Asia as well. Asia accounts for nearly 10% of our global consolidated revenue. Of course, this changes every quarter around 10%, and it's going to grow over the years with the ramp up of our aluminum wheel ramp up in India. That is in this this release process since late 2019, we've been releasing new products. The capacity expansion in our wheel plant in Thailand. The construction of our wheel plant in China is being built. The prototype production is starting, and we'll start mass production as of 2022. Asia is an important market. It is a growing market. It is the biggest, largest automotive market globally.
We want to grow, especially through the expansion of our footprint and organic growth with our activities in the region, either individually or in partnership with companies, as is the case of our wheel, aluminum wheel operation in China. We have a partnership with Dongfeng, which is one of the largest vehicle producers in the Chinese market. Next question by Thais Cascello with Itaú BBA. She says, "Good morning, everyone. Thank you for your presentation." Question on 2022 projections and margins. With the higher relevance of business vehicles on our mix, which have better margins. What kind of margins can we expect for 2022 when light vehicles will be back in production 2022 onwards? And what is the impact on the material production? Also about ESG. Thanks for bringing that up. Regarding the carbon reduction target for the company.
Regarding the S&G, have you pursued internal targets even though you're not disclosing them? How does that converse with managers? Are they going to be reflected in the variable income KPIs? Thank you for your questions. Let me start and then Marco can add. Regarding the margins on our quarterly disclosures, we have benefited by the mix change with a higher percentage of commercial vehicles on our revenue composition. On average, globally speaking, it does have superior margins. That's the first point. The second point I'd like to highlight is that in 2021, our first goal to return to the company's historic margins. We left a pandemic year, which was 2020, and we entered 2021. We had all of our restoration processes.
We accommodated our plant footprint for a challenge of this year. We're going to return to the company's historic margins. We will overcome as we saw on the third quarter. From now on, we hope there's gonna be a high recovery of light vehicles where the semiconductors issues are gradually addressed. This is going to be after the second, third quarters when they enter into production. This is going to streamline the offer. Let's remember that the demand in commercial and light vehicles is still high with low global stocks. There's an offer restriction. Once this offer restriction gradually spreads, we will have a returning light vehicles, which does have lower margin when we compare to other vehicles. It is hard to say.
We don't have any margin guidance, but the margins are going to be due to the mix of products in the countries we operate in. There's a whole issue of the raw material that we've been able to successfully pass on increased cost of our raw material in our products. It's going to depend on the evolution of several different points we've been looking at. Regarding the metrics, we clearly disclose the issue of CO2. We have undertaken our projects that we monitor periodically. We also show water indicators, landfill indicators, and diversity and inclusion, other items regarding ESG that we are monitoring. We do have some internal goals. When we start this process, it is a journey of all those indicators and processes. We should add more transparency and more explicit goals on the market.
I'll let Marcos comment on the r emuneration, how those goals can be connected to each other.
Thank you, Thais, for your question. We do have an effort, a holistic effort regarding ESG from the environmental, social, and governance standpoint in the company as well. As also said, we have internal goals that are established and defined for the different initiatives, not only gas emissions, but energy reduction, use of electric energy and gas usage, or the reduction of water in our processes, elimination, reduction of waste throughout our plants. Those are targets we have established in the company for many, many years now. In our different industrial units around the world, pursue those targets are gonna be more and more important.
We have started publicizing some of these goals, such as our GHG emissions, in our sustainability report, and we have made it even more clear these goals that are specific to different elements of ESG. Remuneration-wise, we are in process of implementation for variable remuneration for executives in ESG aspects in the company. This will be later publicized, and this is a natural process within the company that is committed with the ESG objectives. We talk a lot about the goals and what we are doing. Our adaptation of our products, the adaptation of our technology, also under the digitalization point of view and the development of products, are key for us to have a positive environmental impact. We mentioned, you saw in the presentation the GHG emission related, for example, to the usage of raw material in production of steel wheels versus aluminum wheels.
The technological development under the aerodynamic point of view and the type of design and sizes of wheels and weight of wheels, as well as the design and incorporation of our structural components or elements in the structure of electric vehicles are key for us to have a direct positive environmental impact in our plants. Direct by the usage of our products by our clients. The next question is by Frederico Vontobel. He writes, "Congratulations for the great presentation. My question is the leverage process that is ongoing. The objective that we understand is to lower this relation with the EBITDA to 2x until 2023. What is the level of confidence to reach this goal? What are the minimal conditions in the market to reach this goal? Thank you." Thank you for your question.
Just to make it clear, we are not defining the reach of this goal in a certain period. This is the agreed goal with the administration committee, and we will pursue in the next periods. We have a strong deleverage due to COVID, and we hope to continue this gradual process. There's two factors with the EBITDA or the cash generation that will reduce the net debt of the company. Another component that is important is exchange. This is a variable that is outside of our control, and it impacts leverage. It's a momentary and temporary impact, and if we observe the devaluation of the real in the first moment, the leverage of the company goes up because we had debt in foreign currencies. This is an operational point of view because we also operate cash in several currencies.
When we convert the results generated abroad to reais, we have this EBITDA amount or cash amount that is higher. Some of these equations of the operational performance, the cash generation that also has a dynamics that can be in the same rhythm with the results. This year we had cash consumption that is very high because the raw materials went up in prices, and we hope it doesn't happen the same way next year. It also depends on the exchange function here that I just commented. We have a question from Lucas Laghi of XP.
Good morning, everyone. Congratulations for the event. Could you comment on the strategy of the company for the return of the invested capital? Is there space for ROIC gain in the next years, or you could use the current?
Do you think about adjusting capacity? Could you share the optimal level of ROIC for the company? I'm sorry, who made the question?
Lucas. Lucas, thank you for the question. Of course, ROIC is a key topic here, and we analyze that is a strong part of the remuneration of the executives of the company. Clearly, ROIC is based in the results of operational performance together with our capital discipline. For the last 1 or 2 years, this discipline and the process of seek for leverage, it's very disciplined in the capital structure, especially here in CapEx. We have kept this discipline since 2020, and it will still be applied for next year.
We are finishing our budget process, but we have the focus in keeping this discipline of the capital and to use more of our assets and will generate better ROIC for the company. This is part of the plan. We don't expect big investments and expansions as we did in 2018 and 2019, because of the pandemic and the market is in recovery. In the next years, we will maximize this capacity that we have in the system, invest in productivity for us to gain continuously and improve the company's margins. This is clearly a very important topic as is seen by the administration. We have another question by Luis Fernando Rolando Oliveira. We have seen logistics issues in the United States, especially in ports, the lack of capacity to meet the increasing demand in North America.
Is this affecting the demand for trailers and wheels in the region? Can Yoshi meet this demand? Thank you, Luis Fernando, for your question. We have lived in the past 2 years, a very volatile and unstable period. In 2020, the pandemic has been significant in the production in second quarter, but in third and fourth quarters, it has accelerated and several logistics challenges that are globally, not only in the United States, but in Europe and Asia, and different components. Such as the semiconductors, we all know this, that has affected the auto industry, especially in 2021. We have seen between the end of June and through the end of October, several severe oscillations due to the lack of semiconductors in some regions that are aggravated by the logistics issue. Having the availability, but the distribution didn't occur in the same quality because of these limitations.
In North America, specifically, we have been able to meet the demands of our clients and the volatility and the oscillations in the production programs in wheels and structural components have been well absorbed by our plants and have been able to adjust for up or down, depending on the moment of the demand very effectively. We are prepared to continue meeting this future demand. As the numbers that we showed in the previous presentation, there is a tendency in the growth of the auto production next year of around 13% for light vehicles, excluding China in 2022 when we compare with 2021. The numbers show that is an estimated growth of 17% of the truck production and commercial vehicles globally. We are adapting our plans to meet these demands in different regions and different types of products as well.
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I would like to once more thank APIMEC. Thank also the participation of all of you and the executives of Iochpe-Maxion and the organizers of this event. To close, I'd like to mention again, as our sustainability statement, the success of our business depends on the decisions and actions we take today and the commitments that we establish to help and protect our future. Thank you once more. Happy holidays. Have a great 2022 and be in health.