The Volvo Cars (www.volvocars.com) manufacturing plant in Chengdu (the company’s largest in China) is now powered entirely by renewable electricity; this takes the renewable-electricity ‘mix’ in company’s global manufacturing network to 80%.

The 100% renewable-electricity mix in Chengdu is the result of a newly signed supply contract that will reduce the plant’s CO² emissions by more than 11,000 tonnes per year.

This is the latest step towards Volvo Cars’ ambition to have climate-neutral manufacturing by 2025, as part of a wider climate plan that aims to reduce the overall carbon footprint per car by 40% between 2018 and 2025. Volvo Cars aims to be a climate-neutral company by 2040.

The new electricity contract is also in line with broader ambitions in China to reduce carbon emissions from industry — and to reduce the carbon footprint resulting from energy generation. The Chengdu plant was recently sourcing 70% of its electricity from renewable sources; the new contract addresses the last 30%.

The new contract means that around 65% of the electricity supply will come from hydropower, while the remainder comes from solar power, wind power and other renewable sources.

Volvo Cars is constantly working to reduce the carbon footprint of its manufacturing network, and it has reached a number of milestones in recent years.

All its European plants have had a climate-neutral electricity supply since 2008, while the engine plant in Skövde (Sweden) was the first in the company’s network to become completely climate-neutral (in 2018).

At the Ghent plant in Belgium, Volvo Cars installed 15,000 solar panels in 2018 — the first large-scale introduction of solar energy in its global manufacturing network.