Volvo Cars’ engine factory in Skövde, Sweden, has become the company’s first climate-neutral manufacturing plant, having switched to renewable heating as of 1 January 2018.
Skövde is the first plant in Volvo Cars’ global manufacturing network to reach this status, which marks a significant step towards the company’s vision of having climate-neutral global manufacturing operations by 2025. Skövde also becomes one of only a few climate-neutral automotive plants in Europe.
A new agreement between Volvo Cars and the local provider ensures that all heating supplied to the Skövde plant is generated from waste incineration, biomass and recycled bio-fuels. Since 2008, along with the company’s other European plants, its Skövde site’s electricity supply already comes from renewable sources.
Volvo Cars is constantly looking at innovative ways to move towards its 2025 vision. For example, in 2016, the production plant in Ghent, Belgium, introduced a district heating system that reduced carbon emissions by 40 per cent, saving 15,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.
