Manufacturers are working on the goal of permanently eliminating the carbon footprint in the automotive industry. Efforts are focused on all phases of the supply chain and the roadmaps focus on gradually reducing CO2 footprints, a priority objective to reduce global warming.
An eco-friendly vehicle must not only not pollute the environment during use, but must also have been produced using a sustainable process. And one of the important sections is the decarbonization of production plants. This is the understanding of Aston Martin, which has achieved carbon-neutral manufacturing at its Gaydon and St Athan facilities.
Aston Martin has continued to make progress in reducing its environmental impact thanks to the initiatives put in place to reduce CO2 emissions in its manufacturing processes and the supply chain in general. The goal is to operate in net-zero emissions manufacturing facilities by 2030.
All Aston Martin factories run on 100% renewable electricity, solar panels have been installed at the historic Aston Martin Works premises and thousands of solar panels are planned to be installed at the DBX SUV manufacturing plant in St Athan.
The decarbonization process is global. For example, the BMW Group has opted for resource conservation at its Rosslyn plant in South Africa. This factory gets part of its energy from a nearby biogas plant, thus significantly reducing its CO2 footprint. In addition, a part of the waste generated is reused instead of being disposed of.
In Europe, BMW has a light-weight foundry with an optimized recycling cycle in Landshut, a process that is virtually emission-free.
Ford has created a new solar power plant at its Valencian facility in Almusaffes. In Germany, it has teamed up with German energy provider RheinEnergie to announce an action plan to improve sustainability, through which Ford will triple the area of ??solar panels at its Cologne facilities, a move that will increase the efficiency of processes production of the American firm.
For its part, the group formed by Jaguar and Land Rover has announced that it will invest 15,000 million pounds to accelerate its electric future. One of the planned actions will be to convert the Halewood plant in Merseyside (United Kingdom) into a fully electric factory, an essential action to comply with the commitment to achieve neutrality in carbon emissions before 2039.
The involvement in sustainability and decarbonisation objectives also includes high-end manufacturers, such as Lamborghini. The Italian firm has started up a biomethane installation with the aim of feeding its plant in Santa Agata Bolognese. The system is responsible for supplying around 65% of the company’s gas demand.
Mercedes-Benz is also in the process of decarbonization. Its strategy objectives mark the end of the current decade for the company to be more electric and cover more than 70% of the energy needs in the production of renewable energy by 2030. This objective will be achieved, for the most part, through the expansion of solar and wind power at their own sites.
In his case, Porsche has proposed that its factories have zero impact on the environment. In this sense, its plants in Leipzig and Zuffenhausen are neutral in CO2 emissions and the future is much more ambitious: reduce the environmental impact of both plants by 95% by 2030. Currently, the use of biogas and renewable energy allows us to avoid 90,500 tons of CO2 annually.
The VW group is also fully committed to sustainability. Skoda’s three Czech plants operate on zero carbon emissions and the production plants in India will be completely CO2-neutral by 2025. In addition to the use of renewable energy, the brand’s comprehensive measures also include waste recycling and the use of efficient materials and processes.
In the case of Toyota, it has implemented initiatives to decarbonise factories in Fukushima, using hydrogen. To achieve this goal, the Japanese brand has developed a new electrolytic equipment that produces hydrogen from the electrolysis of water, using the fuel cell group and other technologies.
For its part, Volvo is building a new factory in Slovakia that will have no impact on the climate, aimed at producing only electric vehicles. The start of activities is scheduled for 2026 and the necessary energy will come from renewable resources.
In turn, the Nordic brand will install more sustainable technologies and processes at its most important plant, Torslanda. The Chinese factories in Daqing and Chengdu also run on 100% net electricity for climate.
