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Environment Protection Starts in the Manufacturing Process at BMW

When talking about working for a sustainable future, reducing emissions and the damage cars cause to the environment, many of us tend to focus only on the end result of the automotive industry: the vehicles.
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Photo: BMW
In out furious endeavor of trying to reduce the CO2 levels as much as possible and use fuel in the most efficient way, we forget to stop and think what kind of impact creating and developing these new technologies might have on the environment.

It's one thing to use low-emission or even electric vehicles and it's a completely different thing to build them. Sometimes it takes more energy to create an electric, lightweight vehicle like the i3 than to create an American muscle car. That could result in a lot more pollution being released in the ecosystem than a car could ever produce.

BMW is continuously concerned about these facts. Actually, in the EU, ACEA (the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association) is keeping an eye on all plants from every manufacturer to make sure that what we gain by using EVs is not lost during production.

The German company uses renewable energy wherever is possible. For example, is creating Carbon Fibre-Reinforced Plastic the BMW Group uses the Moses Lake plant in the US for the first part of the production program, where the required electricity comes 100% from Hydroelectric power. Later, when the CFRP reaches Leipzig for the finishing touches, all the electricity required by the equipments is provided by wind power.

This is just an example of how BMW manages to use renewable energy and of how other manufacturers should do too, in order to preserve the environment including during the research, development and building processes.
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