Text/Yang Zheng
"Home is in China", this is BMW's longest love for China's "confession". For the green, low-carbon and sustainable development of "home", BMW brings not only confessions, but also a steady stream of electric vehicle products, carbon reduction strategies in the whole value chain and recycling of non-renewable resources... In this case, Gao Le, president and CEO of BMW Group Greater China, summed it up at this year's BMW Group "Happy Family Banquet" as: "To build the greenest electric vehicle".
Home in China to build the "greenest" electric car
The meaning of "the greenest electric vehicle" is not only zero emissions in use, low power consumption, and even not limited to low carbon emissions in production, but also covers the carbon reduction efforts of the entire life cycle of the product.
Accordingly, the Strategic Goal of the Chinese Government is to achieve a "carbon peak" by 2030, and accordingly, the BMW Group aims to reduce the average life cycle carbon emissions of bicycles by 40% by 2030 compared with 2019 and reduce carbon emissions by 200 million tons.
Dr. Peter, Director of Corporate Finance and China affairs at the BMW Group, said that China is the best choice and partner in a series of transformation processes for the BMW Group, including sustainable development. The BMW Group's corporate strategy is in line with China's "double carbon" goal, which sets carbon reduction targets throughout the entire life cycle of the vehicle. "We not only pay attention to the production and use of vehicles, but also the entire industry chain."
Advocating a circular economy and realizing the recycling of resources is the focus of the BMW Group's sustainable development. Currently, BMW's vehicles use an average of nearly 30 percent recyclable and reusable materials in the manufacturing process, and will gradually increase them to 50 percent in the future.
Taking the newly launched innovation BMW iX as an example, the excitation motor used in this flagship model does not require the use of rare earth materials, the proportion of raw cobalt in the power battery has dropped to less than 10%, the amount of recycled nickel is as high as 50%, and the proportion of recycled aluminum in the shell is also increasing. On the centre console, the control panel is made of sustainably produced FSC-certified wood, and the interior and fabric are made from a large number of recycled materials, such as 50% recycled polyester for fabric/microfiber upholstery, 100% recycled nylon for carpet floor mats, and much more. As for the production level, starting in 2019, BMW Brilliance Shenyang has achieved 100% renewable electricity supply through solar power generated by factory facilities, purchased wind power and international green power certificates.
In addition to its own efforts, in early June 2021, the BMW Group held its first Sustainability Summit in Beijing, and together with suppliers and other partners, it jointly formulated the "Green Transformation Initiative for the Industrial Chain", calling for accelerating technological innovation to promote green transformation. As early as 2017, BMW has established a special team in China to be responsible for power battery recycling and utilization related business, and has established a perfect dealer high-voltage power battery recycling management process by deepening cooperation with professional battery transportation and battery recycling partners. BMW Brilliance has also set up a battery code traceability management system to track the whole life cycle of batteries from production to scrap recycling, and to achieve docking with national platforms.
Promote sustainable development in the "most BMW" way
How to improve the level of sustainability? How is the sustainable development of the "whole life cycle" achieved? If you don't carefully read the annual sustainability report released by BMW Brilliance, few people will realize that BMW has so many paths to improve its level of sustainability. In the latest 2020 annual report, BMW included dozens of sustainability performance indicators: BMW Brilliance's single production energy consumption decreased by 7.4% year-on-year, the water consumption of a single production unit decreased by 17.9% year-on-year, the disposal of single production waste decreased by nearly 60% year-on-year, and the single production process carbon dioxide emissions decreased by 7.5%...
Some of the sustainability performances listed in the BMW Brilliance Sustainability Report 2020
Even the transportation process from the new car to the 4S shop is included in the accounting scope of carbon emission reduction: in 2020, 78% of BMW Brilliance's vehicles can be transported by rail in whole or in part. This means that BMW Brilliance has reduced the carbon emissions of bicycles in the process of factory logistics by 51.3% compared to 2014.
Seeing these data, people familiar with the BMW brand may not be able to help but wonder. Because this approach of promoting sustainable development from the beginning of every step and starting from each link is like BMW's "hammer and baht" when exploring the dynamic driving performance of the vehicle.
This "BMW-style" sustainable development effort is also reflected in the reform of the management mechanism. In 2020, the BMW Brilliance Management Committee approved the establishment of the BMW Brilliance Corporate Sustainability Executive Committee. The 9-member management working group meets regularly once a month and is primarily responsible for establishing cross-departmental resource synergies, ensuring transparency across business units in their efforts to advance sustainability, and accelerating the implementation of related projects.
In 2020, BMW Brilliance once again ranked first in the "Green Development Index of Automotive Enterprises", won the honor of "National Green Demonstration Factory" for the fourth consecutive year, and was awarded the "2020 Enterprise Best Practice Award for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals" by the United Nations Global Compact China Network for its achievements in sustainable management of the supply chain... With these achievements, it is no exaggeration to call them models of sustainable development.
"China is our home, and we have a responsibility to make this a more livable place." Dr. Wei Lande, President and CEO of BMW Brilliance, said.