During the UN climate conference COP27, Volvo Cars participated in the COP27 Climate Hub, an on-site and digital broadcast hosted by We Don’t Have Time from Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt. Stuart Templar, Director of Global Sustainability at Volvo Cars, joined the broadcast from Sharm El-Sheikh to talk about how a car manufacturing company can push for sustainable transport policies.
Stuart Templar joined the COP27 Climate Hub on November 16th to talk about how Volvo Cars works to improve policies for sustainable transport.
Stuart reiterated that the technology for low-carbon transport is already available — what we need right now is to accelerate the adoption of these new technologies to make sure that fossil fuels are phased out in line with the science-based target of all new car sales being zero tailpipe emissions by 2040 globally, and by 2035 in leading markets. Policy direction is the way to accomplish this, and governments need to set a clear end date for the sale of vehicles powered by fossil fuels and make sure that the charging infrastructure is there to make owning an electric vehicle viable.
Car companies can play an important role to help make this happen by being active and raising their voice. By being vocal about their ambitions, companies like Volvo Cars can show support to policymakers that want to implement stricter sustainability legislation. It is also important to align with organizations that amplify the right messages. Volvo was one of only two automakers that actively called for the EU to introduce a ban on the sale of new fossil-fuel vehicles from 2035. Encouragingly, a political agreement was recently reached on this. Earlier this year, Volvo Cars also decided to leave the European trade industry body ACEA because some members didn’t align with Volvo Cars’ view on climate policy. The company is instead putting its name behind campaigns like We Mean Business’s 1.5°C call or We Don’t Have Time’s We Can Do It! Stuart also mentioned that policies need to take all aspects of sustainability into account: “The transition to more sustainable transport comes in itself with sustainability-related challenges, in terms of social impact as well, particularly in the extraction of minerals and metals required in the battery supply chain. The shift to electrification has to be just. Any legislation has to bear that in mind, and the EU has a piece of legislation coming through which puts the responsibility, legally, on the companies operating within the EU to make sure that any human rights and labor rights impacts are minimized within their supply chains, and at Volvo, we are acutely conscious of that responsibility.”
https://youtu.be/JHAGR_QdfXQ?t=10770
