SEAT wants to reduce its environmental footprint by 50% before 2025

SEAT has set itself the goal of halving its environmental footprint by 2025 compared with 2010 figures. By the end of 2016, the company had managed to improve its five main environmental indicators (energy and water consumption, waste generation, volatile organic compounds and CO₂) by 33.6%.

The improvement of these indicators is part of the ECOMOTIVE FACTORY Plan, with which SEAT aims to reduce its environmental impact in vehicle production. The plan includes a series of measures and projects to maximise resources and minimise emissions across all of the company’s production processes.

Thanks to the implementation of this plan, launched in 2011, SEAT has managed to reduce CO₂ emissions by 66.2%, through measures such as climate control and thermal insulation, external heat supply using biomass, and the purchase of green energy, among others.

In addition, the company has generated less waste and volatile organic compounds thanks to the selective separation of packaging and the replacement of some of the solvents and waxes used in the production process. Energy consumption has fallen by 21.7%, and that of water by 22.5%, thanks to measures such as lowering the temperature in some manufacturing processes or installing a new filter in the rain test.

SEAT’s Vice President of Production, Andreas Tostmann, highlighted the company’s commitment to reducing its environmental impact, which has led to an increase in its investments and projects in sustainability. “In 2016 we invested around 23 million euros to improve our environmental performance. Being able to say today that we have already met the challenge we set ourselves for 2018, and that we have an ambitious target for 2025, is a source of satisfaction,” said Tostmann.

The ECOMOTIVE FACTORY plan forms part of SEAT’s PQT strategy (Production, Quality and Team), designed to improve productivity and quality at the Martorell, Barcelona and SEAT Componentes (El Prat de Llobregat) plants.