The Swedish car industry is not a giant from sales, but Vanessa Butani’s chief of sustainability wants to be a circular business leader with aggressive reuse of metal, batteries and other materials and plants of self-esteem.
VOlvo cars It is not a giant of the car industry, providing less than 800,000 vehicles last year. But when it comes to viability, its ambitions are much greater.
Along with the electricity of its series, Volvo converts its factories to be carbon neutral and aims to reduce water use by 50%. By the end of the decade, Gothenburg, based in Sweden, wants 35% of all content used to recycle a new vehicle, a top industry target. In the end, it aims to be a fully circular business by 2040.
“This is where we see that we can make an impact,” said Vanessa Butani, who is honored today Forbes List of sustainability leaders. “We may be small, but with the ambition we have, the legacy we have and also knowing that this is what is expected by us by our clients, by our stakeholders, we want to lead.”
The American automaker is in turmoil, as Trump administration seeks to dramatically slow down electric vehicles, relax emissions and environmental rules, and promote the idea Climate change is not as worrying as Americans have led to believe. But this ignores a strong global competition among automakers, especially in Asia and Europe, to show consumers that they are making major changes to reduce carbon pollution and go electrically. And even though it is less than many opponents, Volvo is moving quickly to review its activities.
Courtesy of Vanessa Butani
Founded about a century ago, Volvo cars, not to be confused with the former AB Volvo parent, was the main European brand of China’s Geely Holdings, which acquired it from Ford in 2010. (Both brands were signed this month in a month Letter urging the EU not to relax a target 2035 essentially requiring all vehicles to be electrically.) China’s connection is useful as the country is by far the largest buyer and ranks into the world as Volvo Cars’ second largest market, behind Europe and in front of the US
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By 2021, the company has modified assembly plants in Sweden and China to be carbon neutral, using Biogas as an important source of energy. He announced in 2022 that a new Slovakian plant that opens next year will also be powered by energy that does not add to carbon emissions. The company also uses “megacasting”, a construction process that replaces 100 small parts with a single large aluminum to limit the cost and plant emissions.
But the recycling goal is perhaps his most aggressive. It works with Swedish Steelmaker SSAB to use recycled steel, but the production of cars with higher recycled content is not as simple as it would be decades ago, when cars were mainly made of steel, aluminum, glass and rubber, long -range.
The company’s progress, especially with the new ES90 Premium EV, but has much more to do to hit its 35%target, Butani said. “We reach up to 29% recycled aluminum in the ES 90, 18% recycled steel and 16% recycled polymers and organic materials.” We have realized that it is difficult when you have the batteries coming there. This makes it harder. ”
This is due to the fact that the provision of recycled material batteries, especially lithium, remains limited, but increases. As a result, lithium -ion batteries continue to depend largely on a global basis for supply of raw materials, many of which are processed and refined in China, adding EV carbon intensity. However, Volvo has made progress in providing so -called batteries passports for its electric models, indicating the battery materials used where they came from and how they were made, two years ahead of a new European Union law they need.
“We try to be as transparent as we can,” Butani said.
Unlike China, where the UN and hybrid plug-in represented 56% of new vehicle sales Last month, US policy changes will probably limit the sales of EV models they sell there – even if it does not slow down its ambitions. In the meantime, however, Butani said this means that we focus more on the hybrid plug-in, not on fully electric cars.
“We will continue to invest and innovate in the United States and provide our electricity technology, but we are also working with our bridge technology, with plug-ins,” Butani said. “The electric vehicle is a better product. It may take a while, but we are still committed to showing our consumers what they are.
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