The road to carbon zero for the motoring industry may only be a decade away, but some manufacturers are taking steps now that will mean their practices are greener even earlier.
German luxury car manufacturer Audi have launched a campaign, Mission:Zero, with the aim of putting into practice a raft of policies and economies which will help the company go carbon neutral by 2025.
While the vehicles themselves may not be free from emissions, the factories which build the cars often add a large element of carbon into the atmosphere, especially for a company that built 1.8 million cars in 2019. Some of Audi’s production plants are already carbon neutral, including the Gyor plant in Hungary which is powered by 160,000 solar panels and utilises thermal energy. The aim for the company is to make the rest of their workforce neutral.
Peter Kössler, member of the board of management of Audi AG for production and logistics, said: ‘A major proportion of the emissions in an automobile’s lifecycle are generated during its utilization phase. However, along with the growing proportion of electrified vehicles, these emissions increasingly shift to the manufacturing phase.
“This is where we have a decisive lever as manufacturers. By achieving carbon neutrality for our production sites and consistently carrying this aspiration into our supply chain, we ensure that our automobiles reach the customer with a smaller carbon footprint.”