Geely Holding Group, China’s largest privately held automotive group, published the Group’s 2022 Sustainability Report and outlines Group-wide ESG strategy leading towards full value chain carbon neutrality.
Geely Holding’s ESG strategy lays out a framework for the Group and its subsidiaries to comprehensively strive for sustainable development and work towards the Group’s goal of reaching operational carbon neutrality by 2030 and full value chain carbon neutrality by 2045. The strategy focuses on the six areas of compliance, addressing climate change, resource conservation, safe mobility, sustainable value chains, and employee and community welfare.
The Group’s road to carbon neutrality will be driven by two major sources of energy, green electricity and green methanol. To reach full value chain carbon neutrality, the Group is working with supply chain partners to transition towards zero-carbon materials, zero-carbon manufacturing, and zero-carbon energy.
In 2022, Geely Holding became the first Chinese automotive group to be a partner of the leading collaborative platform Drive Sustainability, facilitated by CSR Europe.
Promoting more sustainable mobility and products, sales of plug-in hybrid and battery electric vehicles across the Group doubled to more than 640,000 vehicles in 2022, representing growth of 100.3%.
Establishing smarter and greener production powered by green electricity, great progress has been made towards zero-carbon manufacturing. Geely Auto installed 307MW of photovoltaic power, an increase of 168.7% over 2021. Geely’s Xi’an plant that is producing several brands from across the wider Geely Holding Group, became the first plant in China to achieve zero-carbon operations, whilst thirteen Geely plants in China were rated “Green Factories” by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. LEVC’s Coventry plant ran on 100% green electricity in 2022. Volvo’s Taizhou plant has also achieved 100% carbon neutrality in electricity use.
With a firm believer in green methanol as an important tool to help fight climate change, great progress was made in the promotion of green methanol in 2022. The world’s first 100,000-ton green methanol factory invested in by Geely started production in Henan Province, China preventing 160,000 tons of waste CO2 emissions. Geely supported the Danish initiative to promote the production and development of green e-methanol through a 15-month test and demonstration trial of green e-methanol fuel and methanol vehicles in Denmark. Geely Auto launched the world’s first methanol hybrid sedan offering low operating cost and ultra-low emissions.
In addition to green production and green fuels, Geely has also placed great importance on sustainable green materials as part of circular economy. In the last year, Geely and its subsidiaries launched new products utilizing an ever greater amount of eco-friendly sustainable materials. The new Zeekr 009 uses eco-friendly materials such as “Ultrasuede” to cover its interior and plant-based materials account for nearly 30% of materials used. Geely Auto’s Geometry E uses plastics made from plant straw and felt lining from recycled PET fibers. The new Volvo’s EX90 will use 15% recycled steel, 25% recycled aluminium as well as 48 kilograms of recycled plastic and bio-based materials. The recently launched Lotus Eletre SUV is made of 89% recyclable materials.
Eric Li, Chairman of Geely Holding Group in his address on ESG stated
“At Geely Holding, we are guided by our core values: truth-seeking, hard work, collaboration, and innovation, to respond proactively to our changing environment and business landscape. We work relentlessly to strengthen our core competitiveness through technological innovations, ecological developments, win-win collaborations, and improved global corporate governance. We also uphold and practise ESG to ensure a better world for everyone.”
COMMENTS