9:22 am, November 23, 2020
Audi has confirmed it plans to make all of its production facilities carbon neutral by 2025.
Billed ‘Mission:Zero’, the firm is implementing a range of policies that look to make its plants CO2 neutral ‘on balance’. These include the use of green electricity, with the firm’s Gyor plant in Hungary having the equivalent of 22 football pitches of solar panels on its factories’ roofs.
Audi’s Brussels factory, where the electric e-tron SUV is produced, was the first to become carbon-neutral back in 2018, and earlier this year the aforementioned Gyor plant also earned this status.
The remaining facilities – Ingolstadt, Neckarsulm (both in Germany) and San Jose Chiapa, Mexico, are said to be currently between 70 and 75 per cent carbon neutral.
Peter Kossler, 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.’
Despite Audi’s pledge, though, it’s far from being the first car firm to declare its manufacturing facilities going carbon neutral. Bentley’s plant in Crewe was given this status in 2019, while earlier this year Jaguar Land Rover celebrated two years of its plants being recognised in this way.
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