In 2010, Ford’s Environmental Quality Office announced a goal to reduce CO2 emissions from the company’s manufacturing operations by 30% per vehicle produced by 2025; it has hit the target twice as fast as expected, reducing CO₂ emissions by more than 3.4 million tonnes between 2010 and 2017 — equivalent to the emissions from more than 728,000 passenger vehicles driven for one year.

Ford (www.ford.com) vice-president Bruce Hettle said: “We are proud of the work we have done to achieve this goal. We’ve made several improvements to our manufacturing operations — from the lighting we use to plant consolidations — all of which played a role in dramatically reducing our CO₂ footprint.”

Andy Hobbs, director of the Environmental Quality Office, said: “Painting operations use a large amount of energy. Introducing technology in more plants that allows ‘wet-on-wet’ paint application and eliminates a drying oven has significantly reduced energy use, while maintaining quality.”

Minimum Quantity Lubrication is another energy-reducing technology.

In MQL, machining operations are carried out with a very small amount of oil sprayed directly on the tip of the tool in a finely atomised mist, instead of with a large quantity of coolant/water mixture.

Mr Hettle added: “We will continue to set ambitious goals and work to create innovative practices to achieve them. Our next strategy will focus on increasing Ford’s use of renewable energy, while maintaining our energy efficiencies.”

Ford is spending $11 billion to put 40 hybrid and fully electric vehicle models on the road by 2022.