Volkswagen surprises lobbyists with 30% carbon cut commitment
Wed 07 March 2012
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Volkswagen has announced plans to reduce its carbon emissions to 120 grams of CO2 per kilometre by 2015, a full 10 grams below the EU’s target and by 30% overall in the 2006-15 period. The announcement surprised lobbyists who have recently been critical of VW's stance on emissions reductions.
The German car company announced what it describes as a “fundamental ecological restructuring” saying in a statement that: “Every new model generation will on average be 10% to 15% more efficient than its predecessor.”
In the headline summary of its press release VW said it is committed to:
• Ambitious new sustainability targets
• A 30 percent reduction in CO2 emissions during period from 2006 to 2015
• Emissions below 120 gram CO2/km mark for first time in 2015
• More than two thirds of €62.4 billion investment program for the period to 2016 to be spent on ever more efficient vehicles, powertrains and technologies as well as environmentally compatible production
• Every new model generation will on average be 10 to 15 percent more efficient than its predecessor
• Group production to become 25 percent more environmentally compatible by 2018
• 40 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions associated with production-related energy supplies by 2020
• Some €600 million is to be invested in expanding the use of renewable energies such as wind, solar and hydroelectric power
"We welcome that more and more car manufacturers are announcing that they will overachieve the 2015 target and hope that manufacturers will continue their CO2-reduction efforts with a view to meeting the 2020 target of 95 grams per kilometre,” Isaac Valero Ladron, an EU Climate Action spokesman, told EurActiv.
The news was particularly surprising because Volkswagen had previously been accused of lobbying strongly against EU standards and has been branded by Greenpeace as Europe’s dirtiest carmaker.
A VW lobby brief to the EU in June 2010, reported by EurActiv, stated that future CO2 reduction targets "will definitely not be met through energy-efficiency measures taken on the vehicle alone.”
The brief described the EU’s proposed 95 grams target for 2020 as “not based on sound impact assessment, nor on a realistic appreciation of the costs and technical progress necessary to meet the goal within the timescale.”
Franziska Achterberg, Greenpeace’s EU transport policy advisor, said that the company’s turnaround showed that its lobbyists had misled EU politicians about the technical possibility of achieving deep carbon emissions cuts.
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