“now everyone is talking about price, marketing, sales, volume, flow and carbon reduction, which seems to be a bit unpopular.
” During the 2024 carbon Expo, a colleague said this to the editor.
It seems that it is true that since 2024, automobile enterprises have been deeply threatened by “flow war” and “price war”, and automobile supply chain enterprises can not escape the “fight” and have to reduce their costs to survive.
Compared with this, carbon reduction seems to be far from “burning eyebrows”.
We have to do it.
In fact, it is not, brushing off the surface of the industry, based on the dual-carbon goal has been clear, and carbon tariff trade barriers are on the rise, for car companies and supply chain enterprises, carbon reduction is becoming more and more urgent.
Judging from the actual situation, they also began to wrestle secretly.
According to the Automotive Industry carbon Neutralization Action and thinking (2024) recently released by the Global Automotive Research Institute, at least 23 automobile companies and 33 parts companies have specified the time of carbon neutralization and carried out corresponding actions at the same time.
There are many ways for car companies to reduce carbon, and they have made carbon-neutral schedules one after another.
Among multinational car companies, for example, Volvo is committed to achieving global zero emissions by 2040.
Nissan plans to achieve carbon neutrality in its corporate operations and product life cycle by 2050.
Volkswagen Group is committed to carbon neutralization by 2050.
Mercedes-Benz plans to stop selling traditional internal combustion engine passenger cars by 2039, when all its passenger cars will be carbon-neutral.
Among domestic auto companies, GAC GROUP plans to achieve carbon neutralization in 2045.
Changan Automobile plans to achieve carbon neutralization by 2045.
FAW Group plans to achieve net zero emissions by 2053, with the ability to achieve carbon neutralization.
According to the above-mentioned report of the Global Automotive Research Institute, judging from the actions of car companies that have issued carbon neutralization strategies around the world, car companies mainly achieve carbon neutralization through measures such as the supply of renewable and recyclable materials, the use of renewable clean energy in manufacturing and travel links, and the acceleration of products by electrification.
In addition to accelerating the electrification of products, an obvious phenomenon is that car companies are speeding up the promotion of zero-carbon factory construction.
Volvo, for example, is said to have built zero-carbon plants at three of its factories in China.
Geely has previously revealed that it has completed the certification of two zero-carbon factories in Baoji and Chengdu in 2023, achieving the goal of building three or more zero-carbon factories in 2025 ahead of schedule.
GAC Ean also obtained the carbon neutralization certificate granted by Guangzhou carbon emissions Trading Center in November last year, becoming GAC GROUP’s first zero-carbon plant.
Volvo Zero carbon Plant.
photo: Volvo, and car companies are also accelerating the promotion of new green and low-carbon procurement standards.
In order to reduce carbon emissions in the scope three supply chains, BMW and other car companies are actively building a recyclable, renewable and sustainable green supply chain, which not only sets clear targets for key raw materials such as steel, aluminum and plastics, as well as key components such as power batteries, but also requires suppliers to increase the use of green electricity.
And the adoption of sustainable raw materials.
Take Volvo as an example.
It is reported that Volvo EX30 has a carbon footprint of only 170g per kilometer throughout its life cycle, which is much lower than other similar cars.
In the vehicle parts, aluminum alloy steering knuckle and other parts, many are through the application of recycled aluminum to reduce carbon emissions.
Volvo also uses a large number of recycled materials in terms of vehicle interiors, such as turpentine and recycled pure water bottles, which are very similar to leather seats.
In addition, in the battery recycling and disassembly stage, Volvo will extract the metal elements, and then through the chemical process, extract lithium, cobalt, nickel and other elements to continue to be used in lithium battery manufacturing to form a green cycle.
From this point of view, there are many ways for automobile companies to promote carbon neutrality.
Gaishi Automotive Research Institute pointed out that automobile companies should choose specific routes according to their own and industrial environment.
Supply chain carbon reduction should not just focus on “carbon offset”.
According to the report, parts and components companies are relatively earlier than vehicle companies in terms of achieving carbon neutralization tempo, mainly because their boundaries and scale are smaller than car companies, and can better improve their competitiveness.
Oh, that’s true.
For example, as early as 2020, Bosch achieved the range 1 and range 2 carbon neutralization goals (range 1pd2p3 is defined according to the Enterprise greenhouse Gas Verification and reporting Standard).
Photo Source: Bosch, so how does Bosch do it? Dr.
Xu Jun, director of strategy for sustainable development of Bosch China, revealed in a recent interview with Galaxy that Bosch is a “four-pronged approach”.
That is, to improve energy efficiency, expand on-site renewable energy, purchase green electricity and use high-quality carbon sinks to compensate for residual carbon emissions.
Among them, to improve energy efficiency, that is, energy conservation and emission reduction, “this is what the Chinese government is now trying to promote enterprises to do.
” To expand renewable energy in the field, “We do not use energy generated by thermal power, we use renewable energy, which is also a kind of energy, but does not produce carbon emissions.
” In China, local governments allow us to buy a certain amount of green electricity.
In fact, green electricity is the most cost-effective of all four links.
” Carbon offset, “No matter how much is done, there must be some ways and means to produce carbon emissions, and carbon offsets are needed at this time, that is, high-quality carbon sinks (carbon sequestration refers to the absorption of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through afforestation, vegetation restoration, etc.). The process, activity or mechanism of reducing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere) for carbon offset compensation.
” Of course, Dr.
Xu also pointed out that the scientific carbon target has a clear target for the proportion of carbon offsets.
“by 2030, as a qualified enterprise, the proportion of carbon offsets can only be 15%, and by 2050, the proportion will drop to 5%.
” For enterprises, this is obviously a great challenge.
In fact, even Bosch, which has made remarkable achievements in reducing carbon, has offset 18% of its carbon in 2023.
Dr Xu said: “We have worked so hard to reach 15% (it can be seen that it is not easy to reduce carbon), but because we will achieve 15% by 2030, we still have a few years to work.
” Of course, it is undeniable that the proportion of Bosch carbon offsets is relatively small.
“it is a value allowed in line with scientific carbon goals.
Bosch promises to achieve carbon neutralization by improving energy efficiency, saving energy and reducing emissions.
” and the use of more renewable energy to achieve carbon neutralization, rather than simply buying a lot of carbon offset. ” Dr. Xu added.
According to the latest Bosch data, since 2019, Bosch China has implemented more than 890 energy-saving projects, saving a total of 153 million dry watt hours, equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of 68000 Chinese households.
Among them, in 2023, Bosch China added nearly 220new energy-saving projects, saving 27 million dry watt-hours.
In that year, Bosch’s factories in China used its own photovoltaic renewable energy to generate 36 million dry watt hours, an increase of 20 per cent over the same period last year.
, picture source: Bosch, upstream and downstream industrial chain, need to coordinate carbon reduction, “now there are a small number of main engine factories (OEM) to allow a carbon premium, but this is also in the case of our great efforts to fight for, they realize.
I think this is an unhealthy behavior, they do not really take into account corporate social responsibility, most of them are still based on economic interests.
” There are supply chain insiders to reflect to the car.
It is true that car companies have taken some action to reduce carbon, but that may not be enough.
One of the points may be that car companies should do more to drive the “zero carbon” transformation of the upstream and downstream industrial chains, rather than pressing the indicators upstream.
The good news is that car companies are increasingly seeing teaming up with suppliers.
Volvo, for example, signed a contract with Yunnan Aluminum in January this year to officially launch the first-tier supplier “Baijia Green Power” project.
The supplier of “hundred Green Power” is committed to realizing the use of clean electricity at the Volvo auto parts plant in 2024 and implementing the clean energy measures approved by Volvo cars.
Guangzhou Auto Honda, for example, also gives full play to the role of the main enterprise in the chain, relying on the mainframe factory procurement system to comprehensively promote coordinated carbon reduction measures.
Continuous efforts will be made to promote low-carbon raw materials, improve the utilization of renewable materials, and assist suppliers to carry out low-carbon transformation.
From the supplier’s point of view, Bosch and other enterprises are also promoting this process.
According to Dr.
Xu, Bosch reached a cooperation with a mainframe factory on battery recycling in the first half of this year.
“as manufacturers, we have corporate social responsibility to take back what we sell through appropriate channels and get the qualification.
” by dismantling, we can also recycle or reuse the battery into new parts.
” Bosch has achieved carbon neutralization in range 1 and range 2, she said.
“We now spend a lot of time looking at the whole value chain, that is, the carbon reduction of range 3, our supply chain, our logistics, including the energy consumption of our products, and so on.
” In this process, Bosch emphasizes material efficiency, that is, the effective use of materials.
the rebirth of old things, that is, the reuse, maintenance and remanufacture of products and components.
the use of recycled materials and the recycling of raw materials.
Picture source: Bosch, “when we make a product, we will consider the final overall life of the product, for example, the life of a product is 20 years, but there are some stainless steel or some steel parts in it.
Its life is actually much longer than 20 years.
When your product life is over, but your parts still have a life, we need to identify which parts can be recycled through our own ability.
Really make the best use of the parts. ” Dr. Xu added.
Bosch is also trying its best to help suppliers make low-carbon transformation.
It is reported that Bosch has invited a number of suppliers around the world to join the CDP (Carbon Disclosure Project) carbon information disclosure project.
With reference to effective transparent carbon emissions data and specific SBTi commitments, about 2200 Bosch suppliers provide carbon emissions information through the CDP platform in 2023, including about 20 per cent of Chinese suppliers.
In addition, recently, the “Green low carbon supply chain Master Enterprise Alliance (CN100)” was unveiled, and Bosch China has officially become one of the main enterprises in the alliance chain.
With the tenet of “green development, low-carbon transformation, co-building and sharing”, the alliance promises to achieve carbon neutrality at the operational level in the shortest possible time on the basis of setting scientific carbon reduction goals and paths.
at the same time, core suppliers are encouraged to set and implement emission reduction targets that are comparable to or higher than corporate emission reduction targets.
All in all, carbon reduction is not a trivial matter.
It is difficult for “one person” to take the lead, and only with the cooperation of “everyone” can we get twice the result with half the effort.
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