Volvo Cars’ Torslanda plant goes climate neutral

Volvo Cars says its Torslanda site in Sweden is its first car manufacturing plant to reach fully climate neutral status.

Its Skövde engine plant in Sweden became climate neutral in 2018, with Volvo Cars working towards having its global manufacturing network climate neutral by 2025.

The centrepiece of the plan is Volvo Cars’ ambition to electrify its entire line-up.

Volvo Cars counts a manufacturing site as fully climate neutral when it registers no net increase in greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere through electricity and heating used by the plant.

The Torslanda plant, the company’s oldest, has been powered by climate neutral electricity since 2008. Half of the plant’s heating comes from biogas, while the other half is mainly sourced from district heating through industrial waste heat.

“Establishing Torslanda as our first climate neutral car plant is a significant milestone,” Volvo Cars industrial operations and quality head Javier Varela says.

Apart from becoming climate neutral, Torslanda also constantly reduces the amount of energy it uses. Targeted improvements in its operations during 2020 resulted in annualised energy savings of almost 7000MWh, equal to the annual energy usage of more than 450 Swedish family homes.

The plant plans to make further efficiency upgrades which should result in additional annual energy savings of around 20,000MWh by 2023.

These energy savings are part of a wider ambition for Volvo Cars to reduce energy usage per car produced in its manufacturing network by 30% in 2025.

It will develop renewable electricity generation capacity on-site as well.