Volvo to reduce carbon footprint per car by 40 per cent by 2025

Volvo launches one of the most ambitious plans in the automotive industry, aiming to reduce its lifecycle carbon footprint per car by 40 per cent between 2018 and 2025.

This is the first, tangible step towards Volvo Cars’ ambition of becoming a climate neutral company by 2040.

The plan represents concrete actions in line with the global Paris climate agreement of 2015, which seeks to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Volvo Cars’ 2040 ambitions go beyond addressing tailpipe emissions through all-out electrification, another area in which the company is at the forefront. It will also tackle carbon emissions in its manufacturing network, its wider operations, its supply chain and through recycling and reuse of materials.

As a near term step towards its 2040 ambition, Volvo is implementing a set of ambitious, immediate measures in its efforts to reduce the company’s lifecycle CO2 footprint per car by 40 per cent between 2018 and 2025.

At that point in time, the company also aims for its global manufacturing network to be fully climate neutral. To realise that the company has devised a number of ambitions for different parts of its operations. The previously communicated goal of generating 50 per cent of global sales from fully electric cars by 2025 is a prominent one, which would result in a 50 per cent reduction in tailpipe carbon emissions per car between 2018 and 2025.

Other short-term ambitions include a 25 per cent reduction of CO2 emissions related to its global supply chain by 2025, a 25 per cent share of recycled plastics in new Volvo cars by 2025 and a 25 per cent reduction of carbon emissions generated by the company’s overall operations, including manufacturing and logistics.