April 24: The Volkswagen Group has published its latest Sustainability Report, giving a comprehensive overview of the organisation’s activities in relation to the economy, society and the environment. One of the key objectives of the 100-page report is to explore the development of improvements in the environmental compatibility of products and production, as well as the encouragement of health, skills and welfare of the Volkswagen Group’s 500,000-plus employees across the world.
“Our job, in fact our responsibility, is to safeguard the future of widespread personal mobility, keeping it affordable, safe and environmentally compatible. This is why we have recently raised the bar in terms of sustainability and have set new, ambitious goals,” explain Prof. Dr Martin Winterkorn, chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG, and Bernd Osterloh, chairman of the General and Group Works Councils in the report’s introduction.
The new Sustainability Report gives an overview of the Volkswagen Group’s product portfolio and its environmental credentials. Currently the Group offers 155 models which emit less than 120 g/km of CO2; 28 are below the threshold of 100 g/km. The Volkswagen Group is also aiming to increase further the environmental compatibility of its products, with a target to reduce the CO2 emissions of its European fleet by 30 per cent by 2015, compared to 2006. For 2015 the Group is aiming to have its fleet emissions below the key threshold of 120 g/km of CO2.
The Volkswagen Group is also aiming to make production at its 94 plants more resource-friendly, with targets to make operations around the world 25 per cent more eco-friendly by 2018. The key principles of responsibility within the Volkswagen Group are:
• From now until 2016 the Volkswagen Group will be investing €62.4 billion around the world and an additional €14 billion in China. More than two-thirds will flow directly and indirectly into increasingly efficient vehicles, powertrains and technologies as well as into environmentally compatible production at plants around the world.
• In the period between 2006 and 2015, the Volkswagen Group wants to reduce carbon dioxide emissions of its European new vehicle fleet by 30 percent. From 2015 the fleet will pass below the key threshold of 120 g/km of CO2.
• Each new model generation of the Group’s vehicles is designed to be, on average, 10 to 15 percent more efficient than the previous model generation.
• Production operations of the Volkswagen Group will be 25 percent more environmentally friendly by 2018. In concrete terms that means 25 percent less energy and water consumption, waste and emissions.
• Carbon dioxide emissions from energy supplies to production will decrease by 40 percent.
• The company will invest €600 million in making energy from renewables, including solar, wind and hydroelectric power.