How BMW is embracing sustainable transportation strategies

You might think of BMW as the James Bond car, but these days, the maker of the world's "ultimate driving machine" is driving in a new direction — sustainability.

在我最近访问欧洲，我曾在慕尼黑参观宝马的机会。陆的领导者xury automotive boasts a headquarters that includes a BMW Museum, which spans the early days of the automobile up to the next-gen topics like autonomous driving; a high-tech manufacturing plant, smack-dab in the middle of one of the world’s most expensive cities; and BMW Welt, a giant showroom where BMW lovers can take delivery of new models.

It's clear that like all automakers, the company is currently sorting through the challenges that the industry is facing, from changing perceptions of car ownership among millennials to electrification to autonomous driving.

BMW得早起满足这些测试。它一直在可持续运作的早期领导者，认为这是一个基础性的方式来降低成本，是一个领域的领导者竞彩足球app怎么下载。这也得到了电动汽车行驶的I3起步较早。自那时以来，特斯拉和其他许多其他汽车制造商在电动汽车的高歌猛进。该公司现在认为，电池技术是强大到足以和有望加速进入电动时代，与12到2025年计划全电动车型。

I sat down with Jury Witschnig, BMW’s head of sustainability strategy product and production, to talk about what renewable energy, the circular economy and an all-electric rollout mean to the German luxury car giant.

Pete May: Let’s talk about BMW sustainability — past, present and future. First of all, on the operational front, BMW set an objective of 100 percent clean energy by 2020. How has it been working on this goal, and what have you learned along the way?

Jury Witschnig:2020年的目标是我们一直在内部使用了九年来的东西。所以，在我们沟通这个目标很长一段时间，我们在内部讨论为什么我们要做到这一点，我们将如何做到这一点。而对于我们来说，这是非常重要的首先要了解：为什么清洁能源？

如果你看一个产品的整个生命周期，你必须从产品的大量排放，而使用本产品，而且还必须通过生产该产品的排放。因此，我们认为，“我们可以在我们自己的活动和我们自己生产的怎么办？”

And the first thing, of course, is energy efficiency — or producing fewer CO2 emissions. And secondly, it’s asking ourselves, where is the energy coming from? Are we producing energy on your own or buying renewable energy?

In 2011, we were at 15 percent of renewable use in our production at BMW worldwide. Today we have 80 percent, quite a progression. And therefore, we see a path to 100 percent in 2020.

May: Could you define renewables? What are you putting in that bucket worldwide?

Witschnig:That's very important because internationally, we have very different definitions of "renewables." First, when we talk about energy, we talk aboutenergy sources forelectricity and heat. And when we talk about renewable energy, 100 percent, we are talking about purchasing 100 percent of the electricity we buy from renewable sources. This could be from a windmill on our own plant, but it could also be, for example, from the market with the quality of green renewable electricity.

May: Including RECs?

Witschnig:For us, we always need a guarantee of origin. It could be a REC. It depends on the market. In China there are different systems, as in Europe or the United States. And when we talk about renewable, we mean wind, water, solar panels. We talk about methane gas, meaning biomethane gas we transform into electricity, or landfill gas, as it’s commonly known in the United States. But there must be a guarantee of origin so we know it’s really renewable energy.

May: Now that you've nearly completed the 100 percent renewable energy target, what was different? What surprised you in the journey?

Witschnig:我们的第一个目标是真正说，“是的，可再生能源必须比在其生产的化石能源更便宜的潜力。”然后，这个想法真的是的，是的，“宝马生产的可再生能源投资本身。”我们用我们自己产生的能量。所以，首先要存钱，然后减少过程中，二氧化碳排放量。

Secondly, we said "OK, this is a large investment, and it will be difficult for us to get this investment done internally. Where should this money come from?" Whatever we could do onsite, on our plants, we tried to do, because there we saw a business case for onsite renewables. But onsite energy production is often not enough energy — it depends on the plant. There’s maybe 10-20 percent you can produce onsite for your own plant. But there's no BMW plant where it can produce onsite 100 percent of renewable electricity for use. We always needed to buy something. And thus the question: purchase or invest?

在一天结束的时候，我们有一个内部讨论说，“是的，投资是不错的。但首先，投资回报是我们的产品要高，所以让我们做投资的能源专家外宝马和与他们合作。”因此，我们与公用事业一起合作，与他们的合同，并从他们的可再生能源投资购买。

May:BMW was quite early and aggressive in setting carbon emission targets and energy targets within production. Why were you setting those metrics so early?

Witschnig:我们在制定可持续发展目标，因为我们认为这是一种经济利益，而不是打击竞竞彩足球app怎么下载争对手有竞争力的点很长的历史。我们说我们应该这样做，作为一个领导者，激励他人，其他汽车原始设备制造商，当然还有其他的供应商也一样。

我们必须与供应商进行了长时间讨论，许多人现在也承诺100％的可再生能源。他们看到，我们能做到这一点，作为一个大型工业公司，所以他们也可以。所以，它更像是为别人的灯塔项目。

[Editor's note: Pete May is president and co-founder of GreenBiz Group. This interview is part one of two of GreenBiz's conversation with Jury Witschnig about BMW's sustainability strategy. Watch out for the next one Oct. 4.]