Our C40 Recharge Life Cycle Assessment report is out – how are electric car benefits affected by access to clean energy?

We aim to be a fully electric car company by 2030. And we have an ambition to be a climate neutral company by 2040. They’re motivating targets but as you read this, carbon emissions are still common across our operations.
We believe that solving a problem starts with acknowledging there is one and being transparent about it. One way we do this is by compiling and publishing a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) report for every new fully electric model we launch. We started this transparent and proactive reporting with the XC40 Recharge, and today we launch an LCA for the C40 Recharge.
Each LCA is first and foremost a guide for our customers, so they can make an informed decision about their purchase of a new Volvo. The report illustrates through a number of scenario’s how much CO2 the car is expected to emit over its entire life cycle, including both the manufacturing and the use phase.
A crucial finding in this new LCA is that it matters a lot whether you charge your C40 Recharge with clean energy sources or not. No surprises there; we’ve been saying for years that a switch to electric cars should be accompanied by significant investments in clean energy and public charging infrastructure. The LCA, however, provides clear and hard data to support this view.

The report shows that when you charge a C40 Recharge with electricity generated from clean sources, its life cycle CO2 footprint comes down to approximately 27 tonnes of CO2, compared to 59 tonnes for an XC40 powered by an internal combustion engine (ICE).
However, if you charge it with the average energy mix available around the globe (which contains around 60 per cent energy generated from fossil fuels), its life cycle CO2 emissions can increase to as much as 50 tonnes, significantly reducing the environmental gains versus an ICE car.
In other words, people worldwide need the help of governments and the energy sector if our cars are to realise their full carbon reduction potential. As we continue to make this point and call for more investments in clean energy and public charging stations – for example at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow – we’re also actively seeking to reduce our own carbon footprint.
For example, we aim to cut the lifecycle carbon footprint per average car by 40 per cent between 2018 and 2025; including through reducing carbon emissions in our supply chain by 25 per cent by 2025. We also aim for climate neutral manufacturing by 2025, and already now, all our plants in Europe run on 100 per cent clean electricity.
<a href="https://www.volvocars.com/images/v/-/media/Market-Assets/INTL/Applications/DotCom/PDF/C40/Volvo-C40-Recharge-LCA-report.pdf">To read the full C40 Recharge Life Cycle Assessment Report, click here.</a>

Wanted: clean energy for full climate benefits

We’re one of 150 organisations calling on governments to act on decarbonising international shipping by 2050 – an initiative that supports our aim to become climate neutral by 2040.

Sea transport is a key enabler for ensuring that our cars reach our customers all over the globe, and it’s also a vital part of our supply chain.
&quot;We can't become truly carbon neutral without access to zero-emission sea transports. Eliminating tailpipe emissions from our cars and manufacturing operations will go a long way, but the big challenge lies in decarbonising logistics,&quot; said Martin Corner, head of Supply Chain Management (SCM).
“As a large buyer of shipping, joining this call to action is a logical step to push the development in the right direction,&quot; Martin said.

The Call to Action for Shipping Decarbonisation will be delivered to the world's governments ahead of the climate negotiations at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, in November 2021.
The initiative – developed by a multi-stakeholder taskforce with members from the entire maritime ecosystem including shipping, chartering, finance, ports, and fuel production – is based on the view that full decarbonisation of international shipping is urgent and achievable.
Staffan Johannesson, Sustainability Manager at SCM, said: &quot;As one of the signatories to the call to action, we are joining forces with some of the world's largest actors in global trade. We want governments to work together with the industry to deliver the policies and investments needed to reach critical tipping points in decarbonising global supply chains.&quot;

Joining the call to action to decarbonise shipping

We’re moving away from leather interiors, in favour of other sustainable materials. In doing so, we’re right on par with ongoing trends in material design.

The C40 Recharge is an important car in terms of our electric and commercial future, as you could read <a href="https://www.volvocars.com/intl/news/articles/our-brand-new-pure-electric-C40-recharge">earlier this year</a>. But there’s another area in which our new pure electric crossover represents our future: it’s the first Volvo to be fully leather-free inside. As such, the C40 is a hallmark of our commitment that going forward, every fully electric Volvo will be free of leather.
While the raw hides supplied to Volvo Cars today are responsibly sourced as by-products from the beef industry, we want to support animal welfare by contributing to a reduced demand of leather.
Our move towards leather-free interiors is also driven by a concern about the negative environmental impacts of cattle farming, including greenhouse gas emissions and deforestation.
In addition to going leather-free, we also aim to continuously reduce the use of certain materials containing animal products inside our cars – think of certain plastics, rubbers, lubricants and adhesives, which often contain residual products from livestock.
“Finding products and materials that support animal welfare will be challenging, but that is no reason to avoid this important issue,” said Stuart Templar, one of our sustainability experts. “This is a journey worth taking. Having a truly progressive and sustainable mindset means that we need to ask ourselves difficult questions and actively try and find the answers.”
Of course we’ll continue to provide our customers with classy interiors. So instead of leather, we’re actively looking for high-quality and sustainable sources for many materials. In our new electric cars, Volvo drivers will be offered high-quality interior options based on bio-attributed and recycled materials, as well as different types of premium textiles and wool blends with responsibly sourced wool.

The thing is that the definition of premium and luxury is changing. The design world as a whole is moving towards something called Conscious Design, whereby sustainability and responsible sourcing plays an ever-increasing role in creating materials and products. Customer research also shows that for them, sustainability plays a growing role when selecting a brand’s products.
As a new <a href="https://www.media.volvocars.com/global/en-gb/media/documentfile/285907/the-rise-of-conscious-design-full-report">trend report</a> from Volvo Cars and The Future Laboratory shows, designers around the world are actively sourcing high-quality, sustainable and responsibly-sourced materials as they strive to create the luxury products of the future. That fits well with our focus on the circular economy and creating more sustainable products.
A good example is a new, Volvo-created interior material called Nordico that will make its debut in our next generation of fully electric cars. It consists of textiles made from recycled material such as PET bottles, bio-attributed material from sustainable forests in Sweden and Finland, and corks recycled from the wine industry. In other words: very sustainable and yet of the highest quality.
By 2025, we aim for 25 per cent of the material in new Volvo cars to consist of recycled and bio-based content, as part of our ambition to be a fully circular business by 2040. We also aim for all our immediate suppliers, including material suppliers, to use 100 per cent renewable energy by 2025.
So, as with everything, the development of future materials remains a work in progress. But we can rest assured that we’re at the forefront of this development and living up to our ambition of being a company that takes sustainability as seriously as safety.

The future of luxury materials is natural, sustainable and responsible

We’re calling on our suppliers to help us achieve our climate neutral by 2040 ambition – now sustainability is as important as cost and quality.

&quot;We always focus on cost and quality. Now, we are bringing sustainability into the negotiations as well,&quot; says Kerstin Enochsson, our new head of Procurement. &quot;It will not be enough for a supplier to be really good within one of these three fields. To be our partner, they need to fulfil all requirements.&quot;
Improvements within the supply chain can account for a quarter of our overall aim to reduce the CO2 footprint per car by 40 per cent between 2018 and 2025.
Javier Varela, our head of Industrial Operations and Quality, says: &quot;Emissions from our supply base are included in our footprint. This is an area where we must make significant progress in order to reach our CO2 emission targets and to become a climate neutral company by 2040.&quot;
To gain momentum, we have initiated CO2 negotiations with around 20 strategic suppliers. The negotiations aim to make the suppliers commit to reducing their CO2 emissions so they're in line with our targets. Plus we've called on our suppliers to reach out with ideas and propose joint sustainability initiatives.

Kerstin Enochsson explains: &quot;In addition to having integrated our sustainability targets into the sourcing process and decision making, we also support suppliers with relevant training to help them increase their sustainability competence.&quot;
We delivered these messages to around 2,000 participants from suppliers around the world at our 2021 Sustainability Dialogue 'The future of the Supply Chain' – a virtual session that featured Håkan Samuelsson, Javier Varela, Kerstin Enochsson and other key members of the Procurement team.
&quot;The feedback from suppliers has been really positive,&quot; Kerstin says. &quot;We feel that there is a strong drive for innovation and collaboration.&quot;

Supplier choice: Sustainability as important as cost and quality

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Wanted: clean energy for full climate benefits

Joining the call to action to decarbonise shipping

The future of luxury materials is natural, sustainable and responsible

Supplier choice: Sustainability as important as cost and quality