© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A Toyota Brand is seen at a Toyota dealership in Zaventem, Belgium, November 25, 2022. REUTERS/Johanna Geron
TOKYO (Reuters) – Automakers, together with Toyota and Volkswagen (ETR:), ought to decarbonise their metal provide and in the reduction of on the fabric’s consumption by lowering the scale of auto fashions, Greenpeace mentioned on Thursday.
As a transition to battery-powered vehicles brings down the quantity of greenhouse gases which are launched in the course of the utilization of a automobile, a rising share of emissions within the automotive life-cycle will come from supplies, the organisation mentioned.
The world’s 16 largest automakers consumed 40 to 67 million tonnes of metal in 2021, Greenpeace mentioned, estimating that the carbon footprint of the metal supplies these automotive producers used might have been a minimum of 77 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) in that 12 months.
Regardless of net-zero commitments, automakers lacked “concrete actions” to decarbonise their metal, it mentioned in a report.
“None of those firms disclosed the carbon footprint of the metal supplies they used,” Greenpeace mentioned within the report.
Greenpeace mentioned it estimated the automakers’ metal consumption off a calculation utilizing third-party gross sales information from automotive business information group Marklines – together with data on totally different fashions and a automobile’s assumed weight – together with historic information on steelmaking carbon depth by the World Metal Affiliation.
The automakers that consumed probably the most metal final 12 months and in 2021 due to excessive gross sales volumes, together with of sports activities utility autos, had been Toyota Motor (NYSE:) Corp, Volkswagen AG (OTC:) and Hyundai Motor Group, Greenpeace mentioned.
Volkswagen and Toyota mentioned in statements to Reuters they had been aiming to be carbon impartial by 2050, whereas Hyundai Motor Group mentioned Hyundai Motor and Kia had been “accelerating efforts” to change into carbon impartial throughout their enterprise operations.
Stellantis, the world’s No. 3 automotive maker by gross sales, which was named as fourth-biggest metal consumer within the report, mentioned it aimed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2038.
Toyota is working to discover the technological improvement and utilisation of low-CO2 metal supplies, comparable to metal made through the use of hydrogen discount and low carbon metal, an organization spokesperson mentioned in an announcement.
The world’s high automaker holds briefing periods with suppliers to advertise CO2 discount actions usually since 2021, and meets them – together with metal makers – individually every year to elucidate what it expects when it comes to CO2 discount.
A Volkswagen spokesperson mentioned reducing CO2 emissions within the provide chain was “a key component” of its technique as a part of which it concentrates on lowering CO2 emissions the place they’re primarily generated throughout a automotive’s manufacturing.
