BMW i

The BMW Group works together closely with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and is actively committed to responsible and sustainable forestry by adhering to the strict standards. The optional centre console control panel trim in the BMW iX, for instance, is made of FSC-certified wood.

The recycling of primary materials represents an important measure of holistic sustainability within the BMW Group. A good example of recycled materials meeting our premium standard in terms of their quality is the use of Econyl. It is nylon yarn that is extracted from nylon waste in a special process and is used, for example, in the production of carpets. We already use Econyl in the upper layer of floor coverings as well as in the floor mats of the BMW iX.

Alongside steel, aluminium is the most important resource for production within the BMW Group. A correspondingly high value is attached to the entire value added chain in terms of efficiency relating to resources and energy. As a founding member of the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI), the BMW Group actively engages in a certification programme, for example, which establishes and promotes the adherence to sustainable standards among raw material suppliers. Furthermore, today we are already using up to 50% secondary aluminium in selected components.

With projects like ‘Cobalt For Development’ we are bringing our sustainability strategy into our surroundings step by step and hence into all stages of our value-added chain. Through our guidelines, but also through support and promotion, we can ensure that our partners in the supply chain also systematically meet our high social and environmental standards.

Efficient down to the last volt: We are taking back all used BMW high-voltage batteries worldwide – even though there is no legal requirement to do so. During their “second life” our vehicle batteries are put to use in stationary storage systems, with which we are successively equipping our locations around the world. In this way, we are integrating renewable energies into the electricity grid, increasing its stability and lowering the energy costs for consumers. And we are progressing further towards the target of locally CO2-free production. The best example of this is our BMW Group plant in Leipzig with a storage farm consisting of about 700 BMW i3 batteries. As buffer storage for renewable energies, they are helping to store surplus wind energy and then integrate it back into the electricity grid. In addition, they are also decreasing the energy costs for production.

In the case of batteries that have exceeded their useful life as stationary storage, too, we are achieving a constantly rising recycling rate for the valuable resources. This yields particularly high-quality recycled materials for the production of our new lithium-ion batteries. We have partnered with German recycling specialist Duesenfeld to develop a method that can achieve a recycling rate of up to 96% of the materials – including graphite and electrolytes. Currently, only thermoplastics wetted with electrolytes remain after the process. Currently, only thermoplastics wetted with electrolytes remain after the process.

Trendsetting even before production: As a pioneer in sustainability, our word also carries a lot of weight with our suppliers - and we make use of it. We have a contractual agreement with our cell manufacturers that only green electricity will be used in the external production of our fifth generation of battery cells. This will lead to a total saving of around 10 million tonnes of CO2 by 2030 and is roughly equivalent to the amount of CO2 that a city of one million inhabitants such as Munich emits each year. As a participant in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), we support our suppliers in taking measures to reduce CO2 emissions and increase the share of renewable energies.

We know how to think of sustainability holistically. This is why we apply leverage during the development and production of our vehicles. Our goal is a sustainable value chain that covers its own needs with recyclates and renewable raw materials - including energy supply. Admittedly, we have not arrived there yet – but have already achieved pioneering successes on the way. It is not only the handling of resources that plays such a key role in BMW Group business model, but also the reduction of CO2 emissions. Due to the increasing proportion of electrified models and the manufacture of their high-voltage batteries and intensive use of energy and resources this entails, we have to integrate particularly far-reaching measures along the value added chain with respect to reducing CO2. Among the measures to achieve this, the BMW Group will be establishing the CO2 footprint for the material supply chain as a criterion to be considered when awarding contracts to suppliers and will thus be assuming a pioneering role as the first car manufacturer with specific CO2 targets for its supply chain. After all, if we failed to do this, the increasing electrification would result in a sharp increase in CO2 emissions in the supply chain. We are initiating the turnaround and have set ourselves the target of lowering CO2 emissions in the supply chain in the year 2020 by 20% compared with 2019.

On the way to sustainable, resource-saving and future-proof production, the recycling of materials is an essential factor, which we use as leverage. Alongside the intelligent planning of our products, the reuse of materials in the form of recycled substances is also firmly anchored in our value-added chain. All in all, we can now already recycle the waste generated in our internal production to a level of 99%.

With the signing of the United Nations Environment Programme, the "International Declaration on Cleaner Production", in 2001, we committed ourselves to keeping environmental impacts and resource consumption in our worldwide production as low as possible. The BMW Group with its locations and plants is already a benchmark in resource efficiency with regard to low CO2 emissions. Because we do not only want to be part of a sustainable future - we want to be the driving force behind it. We have therefore set ourselves the highest targets in the industry for the year 2030. In order to monitor and analyse our far-reaching measures, we have introduced environmental management systems at all our existing production sites, which are constantly being developed and optimised. Only in this way can we fulfil our ambition of being able to demonstrate the efficacy of our standards and regulations. Alongside the continuous expansion and use of renewable energies and regenerative raw materials in our production, we are also setting an important course with our recycling operations. Today, 99% of the waste generated by our global internal production of 2.5 million vehicles annually is recycled and recovered. And we are constantly working on raising this bar still higher.

Whenever it makes technical, ecological and economic sense and is feasible, we use recycled and renewable raw materials – and aim to significantly increase the proportion of such materials by 2030. In the case of our two most important resources, we are aiming for a factor of 4-6 for aluminium and a factor of 2-5 for steel. Today we already use around 25% secondary steel, up to 50% secondary aluminium in certain components and up to 20% secondary thermoplastics. In this way, we are committed to life cycle engineering for efficient recycling, because the use of secondary materials reduces the CO2 footprint considerably.

This air is full of efficiency – the BMW Group plant in Leipzig is one of the most modern and sustainable vehicle production sites in the world. Since 2013, automobiles with an electric drivetrain and CFRP lightweight chassis have been rolling off the production lines here. The plant is the first car factory in the whole of Germany to be working to a considerable extent with electricity from four purpose-built wind turbines on site. With the innovative battery farm comprising about 700 BMW i3 high-voltage batteries, we are pursuing a number of measures at once in order to achieve efficient resource and energy management in production. Firstly, we are constantly working on extending the life of batteries. Secondly, the battery farm stores surplus energy from the wind turbines when supply exceeds demand and can then feed in this surplus when the electricity supply is too low. In this way, we are contributing to the stability of the public power grid.

A front-runner thanks to radical measures: as the largest vehicle plant of the BMW Group in Europe, the Dingolfing plant has been able to record a fall of one third both in resource consumption and in emissions within the last ten years, thanks to the use of innovative production technologies and production equipment. In these endeavours, the new energy centre is relying on the highly efficient generation of electricity and heat with the aid of a combined heat and power plant (CHP). It converts gas into electricity and exploits the heat resulting from the process as a source of energy. Thanks to the CHP station and one of the largest photovoltaic rooftop systems in Germany, the plant now produces almost half of its own electricity demand. It covers the remaining demand exclusively with green electricity from external energy providers. In waste and disposal management, in particular, the aspiration for a company-wide sustainability strategy is high. Here too the Dingolfing plant achieves top values thanks to efficient recycling measures such as the innovative pressing plant with an impressive recycling rate of 99.8%.Alongside the continuous expansion and use of renewable energies and regenerative raw materials in our production, we are also setting an important course with our recycling operations. Today, 99% of the waste generated by our global internal production of 2.5 million vehicles annually is recycled and recovered. And we are constantly working on raising this bar still higher.

More innovations, fewer emissions. Alongside our production locations in Europe and Brazil, for which we already purchase electricity exclusively from renewable sources, our works in Shenyang has the most efficient photovoltaic plant of the BMW Group to date with a peak output of 15.1 megawatts.