Porsche has pledged to reduce the environmental impact and energy consumption of its production facilities after reporting increases in emissions and usage over 2015.
The company’s latest sustainability report – only its second following 2014’s – revealed that Porsche had increased its consumption of both gas and other fossil fuels, as well as electrical power, over the last year.
Additionally, the car manufacturer’s carbon emissions also increased over the course of 2015, reaching over 142,000 tonnes of C02.
In response, Porsche has pledged to make its production “more environmentally compatible” by 2018, in part by assessing and implementing site-specific measures designed to reduce CO2 emissions and total energy used.
While the report does not outline what measures will be taken, Porsche has said it will develop a system for defining environmental and energy targets for all corporate functions by 2020 through analysis of “the status quo in the respective functions”.
This will build on the company’s efforts over 2015, which has seen it roll out ISO50001 and ISO14001 certification at all external sites and implement group “environment” and “energy” policies. These have led to the a total of 57 resource efficiency measures across the company, such as reducing the standby times of production equipment, saving 1,150MWh .
It also already utilises building management systems, generates 800MWh of solar energy annually from an installation on Porsche’s facility in Leipzig and 30MWh a year from its PV pylon, a 25 meter high pillar covered in over 7,700 solar cells.
Oliver Blume, chair of the executive board of Porsche, said: “Sustainability has always been an important guiding element in our business principles. Porsche is committed to taking responsibility for people, the environment and society. The sustainable use of resources is also a key factor in remaining competitive in the long-term and securing sites and jobs.”
While its production facilities saw increases in their environmental footprint, Porsche was able to reduce the amount of energy needed to produce its vehicles, suggesting increased energy consumption and emissions are a result of higher rates of production.
Despite this success, the company has committed to going further with a pledge to reduce the fuel consumption and average emissions by around 10% when producing a new model generation compared to the previous version.
