Whereas many firms proceed to view nature solely by way of the lens of regulation, Volvo Automotive Company has superior additional — recognizing the worth of nature, lowering its impacts on biodiversity and investing in conservation and restoration. These ambitions are summarized ready assertion launched Sept 9.
There’s no single path for establishing company nature ambitions, so corporations wish to friends to find out finest practices. And it’s price noting that Volvo has pulled again on its EV gross sales targets, enjoyable its dedication to supply solely totally electrical autos by 2030. Its nature technique, although, provides classes for different automakers and different kinds of producers.
Right here’s a abstract of Volvo’s method.
Shifting ahead with the very best knowledge out there
One of many primary challenges corporations face when evaluating their impacts on nature is the dearth of high-quality knowledge and of certainty about which instruments to make use of. The stakes are particularly excessive when assessing baseline impacts, which shall be used as a degree of reference effectively into the longer term.
Volvo used manufacturing and gross sales knowledge from 2021 for chosen automobile fashions representing its total fleet. That is imperfect, as a single yr of information doesn’t seize variation over time, nevertheless it gives a mannequin for transferring ahead with current assets fairly than delaying motion.
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Utilizing the baseline dataset, the Volvo staff carried out a lifecycle affect evaluation following the ReCiPe mannequin. This mannequin estimates biodiversity impacts from cradle to grave, from useful resource extraction in Volvo’s upstream worth chain to impacts from water and gas utilized by autos on the highway by way of their finish of life.
The output is a single metric — species/yr — that represents the potential variety of species to vanish in a given space over one yr. As with all fashions for measuring biodiversity impacts, there are tradeoffs to the ReCiPe method.
The ReCiPe Mannequin for Measuring Biodiversity Impacts
Prioritizing motion primarily based on the very best affect
Unsurprisingly, 64 % of Volvo’s biodiversity impacts are produced by autos on the highway, largely from the manufacturing and use of fuels.
The corporate is already working to cut back these impacts by way of its local weather ambitions (though, as talked about above, it has just lately scaled again these ambitions). Nonetheless, the looming query for the auto business is whether or not elevated mining for battery manufacturing for electrical autos will counteract (or outweigh) the potential biodiversity positive factors from lowering greenhouse fuel emissions.
Acknowledging this dilemma, Volvo was one of many first corporations to name for a moratorium on deep-sea mining. It has not supplied an answer, although, as a substitute stating it’ll “proceed to evaluate and develop actions to keep away from and cut back the biodiversity impacts of batteries, whereas on the similar time sustaining the local weather affect abatement advantages.”
An extra 34 % of the corporate’s biodiversity impacts happen within the upstream worth chain. That is additionally the place water utilization has the best affect on biodiversity. The place assertion doesn’t provide a lot element about actions it’ll take to cut back upstream impacts; Volvo’s beforehand said positions on sustainable supplies and water administration embrace:
- Tracing uncooked supplies of concern to their origin and performing primary and enhanced due diligence for accountable sourcing.
- Phasing out the usage of hazardous substances in automobile manufacturing.
- Decreasing per-car water withdrawal in all operations by 50 % between 2018 and 2030.
- Setting international air pollution limits for basin-level nutrient masses and performing remediation the place wanted.
The remaining 2 % of impacts happen in Volvo’s operations, and the corporate is trying into the state of nature round its amenities, starting with its headquarters in Sweden.
Sadly, Volvo has not publicly launched the complete, detailed outcomes of its biodiversity evaluation, so we will solely analyze info reported in its place statements.
Following the mitigation hierarchy
Volvo plainly states the reality of our present financial system that’s hardly ever spoken aloud by corporations: “Will probably be unattainable to keep away from and cut back all destructive impacts on nature and biodiversity. As such, an funding in restoration and conservation shall be required to counterbalance our residual destructive impacts.”
The corporate states its intentions to fastidiously choose restoration and conservation actions in landscapes straight affected by its enterprise actions and just lately employed somebody to steer this effort. This differs from different corporations that put money into tasks removed from their very own operations and provide chains as a philanthropic endeavor fairly than a real mitigation effort.
On the draw back, it’s not clear from this place assertion how a lot of the corporate’s impacts shall be prevented and lowered earlier than they flip to mitigation.
Finally, Volvo’s new assertion units the stage for motion. The subsequent steps — abating local weather change with out additional harming biodiversity, attaining traceability, bettering circularity and investing in ecosystem resilience — will display how far it’s keen to go.