Volkswagen is making faster progress towards sustainable and efficient production

Volkswagen Group is making faster progress towards sustainable and efficient production. At the same time, the company continues to make good progress towards reducing its production costs. Oliver Blume, Member of the Board of Management of the Volkswagen Group and Chairman of the Board of Porsche AG says: “We are producing more environmentally friendly than ever. From 2010 to the end of 2019, the environmental impact per produced vehicle is expected to drop by more than 37 per cent.” To address offsetting trends, performance measures estimated at one billion euros are also being made in production, and productivity is increasing by six per cent. At the same time, however, Blume emphasises that further efficiency measures must not be neglected.

“In pursuing the target of halving the environmental impact of production by 2025, Volkswagen Group is certainly in a better position now than planned, having attained a 37 per cent reduction.” The following five criteria flow into the assessment of environmental impact per vehicle: CO2 emissions, energy use, water use and solvent use, and generated waste. In the past two years alone, CO2 emissions per vehicle were reduced by more than ten per cent.

The Group is also making good progress towards attaining the target of improving manufacturing productivity by 30 percent over the period 2016 to 2025. This year, productivity is expected to be six per cent above the prior year level, and it is production sites outside of Germany which have made the most significant contributions here. The improvement is better than originally planned. In sum, investments for performance measures in the Group in 2019 are estimated to be one billion euros – before offsetting effects such as inflation and tariff increases. Blume had this to say: “Our sustainable production is a decisive factor in order to also live up to our social responsibility.”

At the same time, Blume emphasised the importance of efficiency measures in Group Production. „Inter-brand knowledge transfer and close cooperation are key factors of success in achieving further productivity increases and in reducing costs and investments.” It is becoming increasingly more important to replicate excellent examples and solutions and transfer them from one site to the others. “We have 122 Group production sites worldwide. This production network offers tremendous potential for synergies. We continue to implement our production strategy measures systematically.“