“The greenest electric vehicle” is not only the greening of the product itself, but also the greening of the entire life cycle.
This year, the BMW Group put forward the BMW iFACTORY production strategy, taking the production of “the greenest electric vehicle” as its mission. To this end, BMW is customizing emission reduction measures according to local conditions in factories around the world. The goal of reducing carbon dioxide and other waste emissions is achieved through energy optimization and circular economy.
In China, since 2014, the joint venture BMW Brilliance has published its sustainability report for nine consecutive years. From three dimensions, we can interpret the achievements of BMW Brilliance in green and environmental protection in production in 2021.
1. Carbon emissions:
In 2021, BMW Brilliance will produce 0.17 tons of carbon emissions per vehicle, taking the lead in BMW’s global production system, and this figure is still being optimized. For example, in 2021, the Lida plant and the Dadong expansion project will build the first combined heat and power (CHP) system using natural gas in Liaoning, realizing the energy transition from coal to natural gas, and is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 50%.
2. Resource consumption:
99% of BMW Brilliance’s factory waste is reused. In 2021, the water consumption of BMW Brilliance bicycle production will be 1.82 cubic meters per unit, and in 2022, the painting workshop of BMW Brilliance Dadong Plant will take the lead in realizing 100% industrial water recycling, and the tap water consumption will be reduced to zero. Save 150,000 cubic meters of water consumption, equivalent to 1.5 “water cubes”.
BMW has also closed-loop recycling of 57,000 tonnes of steel in 2021 alone, through close cooperation with its steel-manufacturing supplier partners, to bring this steel back into production, roughly the weight of five Eiffel towers.
3. Energy consumption:
In 2021, the energy consumption of BMW Brilliance’s bicycle production has dropped for four consecutive years, to 1.40 MWh/unit, a decrease of 7.3% compared with 2020. Among them, all BMW Brilliance Shenyang production bases have built a total of 290,000 square meters of solar panels, with an annual power generation capacity of 60,000 MWh, which can reduce nearly 45,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year. At the same time, BMW has also purchased as much as 2.78 billion kilowatt-hours of “green electricity” to power its factories until 2025, all from renewable energy sources.
BMW Group plans to deliver a total of 10 million new energy vehicles worldwide by 2030, and by 2030, sales of pure electric vehicles will reach 50%. BMW Brilliance, which is rooted in Shenyang, northeast China, will be an important part of this ambitious plan. In June this year, BMW Brilliance invested 15 billion to build its third factory, the Lida factory, which was officially put into production. It is not difficult to see from this, BMW Brilliance’s confidence in the continuous deepening of localization. In addition to expanding investment, in order to become a respectable company in China, it must also set an example in terms of social responsibility. Therefore, BMW fully integrates the green concept into the localized production process, and completely builds a new energy vehicle model. Deserved full life cycle environmental protection value. It is this long-term and cost-free investment in green concepts that deserves the admiration of more peers and the attention of users in the current domestic competitive market environment.
The author of this article is Kick Che to help Wen Feng