Jaguar Land Rover makes £36m emissions reduction pledge

Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) will invest £36m over the next three years in renewable energy, energy efficiency and process improvements, according to the British carmaker's latest sustainability report.


In its latest responsible business performance update, released yesterday (2 February), JLR said an increased investment in energy efficiency is needed to reduce manufacturing emissions, which have increased by 12% in absolute terms due to ‘rapid business expansion’.

“As we invest in new and existing manufacturing facilities around the world, we’re drawing on our expertise in environmental innovation to reduce the energy and natural resources we use to build our vehicles,” reads the report .

“We’re also investigating significant opportunities to reduce emissions through low carbon technologies such as heat recovery and combined heat and power, by optimising our manufacturing processes and through driving cultural behaviour change across our whole business.”

On a like-for-like basis, JLR has seen a 30% reduction in operational CO2 emissions per vehicle since 2007. The firm has a target for carbon-neutral manufacturing operations by 2020. In 2014, the company completed the installation of 21,000 photovoltaic panels at its new Engine Manufacturing Centre in Staffordshire, making it the largest rooftop solar panel array in the UK at the time.

Closing the loop

Another of JLR’s goal outlined in the report was to close the loop on manufacturing operations and car parts.

A range of circular economy initiatives have allowed JLR to create vehicles that are now 85% recyclable and 95% recoverable at the end of their life.

The report details the British carmaker’s “sector-leading” circular approach, including aluminium recycling projects, car take-back schemes and reduced waste to landfill in manufacturing operations.

“We believe the circular economy is an important strategy – placing a value on waste materials so that they are reused in place of natural raw and non-renewable materials,” the report states. “Jaguar Land Rover is a world leader in aluminium vehicle manufacture and we’re constantly increasing the amount of recycled aluminium we use in our vehicles through innovations such as REALCAR2.

“Now we’re looking at viable opportunities to apply the same model to other materials. We’re also switching to responsibly sourced organic materials where we can, such as wood, leather and natural rubber, in place of synthetics and plastics.”

The REALCAR2 project investigated ways of making car bodies using up to 25% recycled aluminium scrap from post-consumer waste-streams.

JLR also operates 250 ‘takeback’ programmes at UK dealerships, where customers can take cars at the end of their life so that the materials and components that can be reused or recycled.

On the manufacturing side, the report noted that JLR met its target of reducing waste to landfill per vehicle by 79% ahead of a zero waste to landfill target by 2020.

Brad Allen

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