Circularity can mean many different things and involves many different actors. At Volvo Cars, achieving circularity is a complex task that involves many of our suppliers, our customers, and most importantly how we take care of our cars once they reach their end of life. To achieve our 2025 target of generating or saving 1 billion SEK from circular practices, we need to find new ways of doing what we do.
On April 18, Volvo Cars participated in the first-ever Stockholm Climate Week. Owain Griffiths, Head of Circular Economy of Volvo Cars, joined the live broadcast from the SPACE Arena in Stockholm, participating in a panel on how we can make the manufacturing of our cars more sustainable through circular and low-carbon efforts.
“We have a target to generate or save 1 billion SEK in revenue generation from circularity,” said Owain Griffiths, Head of Circular Economy at Volvo Cars.
Volvo Cars has committed to being a circular business, a broad term that challenges us to interact with our supply chain and customers in a different way. We need to look at the full life cycle of our cars and make sure that they are sustainable in their manufacturing, use, and end-of-life. To do this, we have set two targets for 2025, one of which is generating or saving 1 billion SEK of new revenue from circular practices. That’s right — by transitioning to being a circular business, we can generate revenue while reducing emissions.
By looking at the whole life cycle of manufacturing, maintenance, and end of life, we can improve our products while retaining value. For example, the traditional way to take care of cars at their end of life is to downcycle them into low-quality materials for construction solutions or other uses. We are now looking into the best ways to recycle these materials instead to maintain a high quality and reuse them in new cars. We’ll be extending the lifetime of our materials and thereby making them more valuable. By combining business incentives with environmental benefits in these processes, we can build momentum for the work towards circularity within our company and others.
“The overarching principle is that we need to decouple the use of highly impactful raw materials from the well-being and productivity that people need for a functioning society,” said Owain Griffiths.
Owain also highlighted the importance of having third-party organizations like the European Union, the Carbon Disposal Project, and others monitor these developments. When Volvo Cars announces new targets or makes new announcements, these organizations ensure that we consider how we are going to bring them to life as well. This third-party certification is a crucial part of the transition to a more sustainable manufacturing practice.
https://youtu.be/-XJ6K4sPWyc?t=12400
•
•
96 w
@volvo is really inspiring other manufacturers.
•
96 w
@tabitha_kimani thank you we are doing our best but we can all do more.
•
87 w
@tabitha_kimani Designing cars with a focus on recyclability and disassembly, making it easier to recycle or reuse components at the end of the vehicle's life. https://slopeonline.org
•
96 w
Dear Volvo, please stop making massive SUVs please make some smaller cars that are more sustainable and use less rare metals.
•
96 w
@lucinda_ramsay this is a great response. It is brilliant car companies are responding so quickly to the electrification transition but there is always opportunity to respond even more quickly...... It will be interesting to see what happens in the next couple of years as the influence of the Chinese EV market takes hold.
•
96 w
@lucinda_ramsay thanks for your feedback. Keep an eye out on the new EX30 which is going to be launched next month. You raise a valid point that more resources have more impact. Being a 100 year old company in a traditional industry is not an easy place to change quickly and we are committed to change but it takes time. As @oliver Ingwall King points out the next few years are going to see a major shift and I am doing my best within Volvo to ensure we embed circularity to impact climate and biodiversity.
•
96 w
@owain_griffiths_201 thank you for responding. I will watch this space!
•
75 w
Agree! https://tiny-fishing.com