The Volkswagen Group has launched its own Carbon Fund. The CO2 fund, which is endowed with €25 million annually, is available to all twelve Group brands. They use it to finance their own climate protection projects at their locations worldwide.
The Carbon Fund was launched by the Group in February 2019. The funds are available for
projects that save CO2, improve energy efficiency or otherwise save energy. In addition, it is aimed at accelerating innovation, strengthening new and existing business models.
For a project to receive support from the 25-million-Euro fund there is an essential factor: It should be scalable and transferable to many of the Group’s sites.
- “LED Lighting” project: In nine of the Group’s production sites, a total of 33 measures were implemented to switch the lighting of the plant to energy-saving LEDs in certain ar-eas. CO2 reduction: 116,000 metric tons annually.
- “Refrigeration supply” project: In Kassel, existing refrigeration units were and are being replaced by so-called separation circuit systems. To date, over 150 refrigeration units have been replaced. The new separation circuits serve to cool the machines and spindles and considerably reduce energy consumption compared to the previous refriger-ation units. In addition, the heat input into the cooling water network is reduced by 23 percent, maintenance and service intervals are longer and less costly. In addition, it has been possible to ensure that in future all new plants will be equipped with separation circuit systems from the outset. In 2019, 13 systems were retrofitted. Total CO2 reduction: 1,350 metric tons annually.
- “Various Infrastructure” project: In this project, new energy efficient pumps with a so-called pump curve optimization were installed. At the same time, building roofs were renovated and a new cabinet cooling system was installed. The project started on July 1 and was completed on December 31, 2019. CO2 reduction: 2,000 tons annually.
