The Bigger Picture: Decarbonization | Mission:Zero
Hi I’m Sebastian copelan and I would like to take you on a Journey for the last 30 years after travel the most extreme regions of our world but Transformations happen here faster than anywhere else with far-reaching consequences in fact this is Ground Zero for climate change affecting the biodiversity and melting the ice faster than ever one more reason why it is
Imperative to decarbonize in this episode I’m going to explore how Audi is pushing towards a sustainable future come on let’s get Informed Bria can you explain to me a little bit what mission zero is so Sebastian Mission zero you know is our program that bundles all our measures and activities worldwide on concerning environmental issues in all our production sites that’s why we focus on the four main challenges of the century
It’s decarbonization you know climate change water usage resource efficiency and biodiversity and so and what about energy consumption how is it different today than it was when you started for example here in the paint shop we have lower baking temperatures then we close circles with the air and it’s the
Engineering it’s digitalization to reduce energy consumption in the pain shop so what is the overall strategy on this our overall strategy is to be CO2 neutral on balance in all our production sites globally by 2025 how does Audi save water in its production and its operations so the first thing as you
Said is save water to economize water to optimize our process that’s why we use this beautiful technology here from the membrane bioreactor in englad then we use Rainwater and we think in circles we recycle water but we have also highlight projects in other plants like in Mexico
We are the first Waste Water free production PL really technology for the environment malti when we talk about a holistic approach to decarbonization what does that mean we take into account the whole life cycle of the vehicle the supply chain Logistics inous production the use phase
Of the vehicle and the end of life of the vehicle for example use phase the main hotspot of C2 emissions is what is the energy that you’re charging your vehicle with so addressing this with renewable energy you are addressing this CO2 hotspot well speaking of energy strategies what is
The infrastructural approach to uh to this plan we need new generation of renewable energy you cannot just use the renewable energy that is already in the market we have new consumers with our electric vehicles so we are signing contracts with the electric energy producers to put 5 ter hours into the
European market from 2021 until 2025 that is equivalent to around 250 installed windmills on onshore what a contrast we are literally on the rooftop of a car manufacturer here can you tell me a little bit about how this came together yes I can tell you biodiversity
As you can see here is an important pillar of our environmental strategy Mission zero without biodiversity there’s no life on Earth as I told you you can measure CO2 consumption you measure water consumption but how to measure biodiversity and that’s why we developed a biodiversity index so we
Have clear goals we have clear road maps and we can make progress visible for example in our foundation our first project was planting forests in all our production sites and we did it together with the Technical University of Munich we’re doing science on how they grows in
Different clim Dage zones this is where all the energy is right this is the beginning point it radiates from from here this is one of the test areas within the international Oak Forest project from the Audi environmental foundation and it’s planned to follow up for 100 years that’s the starting point
There and the idea is to learn from the trees and to see how productivity and biodiversity come together how many of those projects are there around the world around the world we have seven plots it’s about more than 100,000 Oaks that we have planted but what what’s the
Configuration of the trees here yes it’s a certain layout and there are in each wheels 14 rings and 18 spokes in all together 252 oak trees in each wheel and you can simulate a lot of growing conditions the the oak is known to have a high potential to to storage carbon
And the main question of the project is how to plant future Forest to bind as much carbon as possible and at the same time to have a lot plays of biodiversity Oaks are are well known for how strong and how persistent they are they can live up to 1,000 years so this project
What we are speaking about is practically nothing compared to the lifespan of Oaks and does the foundation act with autonomy the environmental foundations are 100% subsidiar of the audh but it’s a nonprofit organization so we can make our own decisions keep on growing we need you
So hudo can you tell me where the shadow is coming from it’s coming from a tree and this tree is from a big remediation project so here we stand on the ground of an old Refinery the first thing we found here were 900 tons of heavy oil
And 200 tons of gasoline and now you can see it’s a high-tech compus here we will develop a green technology – Mobility with autonomous driving and going forward into the future so how do you begin to clean soil we washed more than 600,000 tons of soil here with a big
Washing machine nearly 20 M incredible how long does that take it took uh 6 to 7 years now what was your personal motivation so my personal motivation was incredible High cuz as environmental officer such a project is unique in your life well I think you have a second career there
This project of the rsha is a collaboration between the technical Development Department of Audi and between our broject partner in India and it’s also a collaboration with our apprentices and what we do is green Innovation that means scientific methods and new technologies the batteries come from old Audi’s rron batteries and if
You want it’s a decarbonization project the recycling project and it’s a social project for the women in India outstanding do you think that um we we have a chance of turning this around I’m very optimistic I think we don’t have a choice we have to fight every day we
Have to improve we have to do new measures and you know Sebastian we want to be Engineers of Optimism
Climate change demands action. Mission:Zero is our response. Follow Sebastian Copeland as he explores our wide-ranging actions of Mission:Zero to drive progress for a sustainable future.
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