The year 2022 was a challenging year for the global Mission:Zero team led by Achim Diehlmann and especially for the experts in the “Decarbonization” action area. Markus Faigl, Head of the “Decarbonization of sites” action area: “The war in Ukraine is also impacting our work. It was a new experience for us to face the question of whether we would actually be supplied with gas. In response to this energy crisis, we developed contingency plans and had to revise our existing energy supply concepts.”

Since the launch of Mission:Zero, it has been the clear aim of Audi to not only cut its energy consumption but also reduce its dependence by generating its own renewable energy. The challenge now is the new demand being made on the speed at which this transition is taking place. Markus Faigl: “The energy crisis in 2022 has accelerated this process. We want to move faster to achieve greater energy independence and become more resilient as a result.” Rising energy prices have also increased the pressure on the company to act and step up the pace of progress along its chosen path. Every kilowatt hour of energy it produces itself at lower cost does not have to be purchased expensively.

Energy intensity of the Audi Group – Automotive segment in MWh/vehicle

Energy consumption within the Audi Group total/by type in MWh

Emissions Automotive segment (including components) in kg/vehicle (intensity of greenhouse gas emissions (Scope 1,  and Scope 2,  in kg CO₂/vehicle)

Markus Faigl and his team see this as an opportunity: “The current situation has been a catalyst for increasing the amount of renewable energy we produce ourselves and procure from nearby suppliers. Throughout the past year, we have been screening technologies in order to select optimal measures for our own production of renewable electricity and heat.”

The result: in the medium term, the company will significantly increase its own production of renewable electricity and heat and its procurement from nearby suppliers – for example, by installing photovoltaic systems and using heat pumps to recover the waste heat from production processes. The company also wants to switch to green electricity for a large share of processes that have previously relied on fossil fuels. “What we mustn’t forget, however, is efficiency,” says Markus Faigl. The rule still is: “Each kilowatt hour we save does not need to be produced or procured. We can achieve this, for example, by using more LED bulbs at our sites or by retrofitting ventilation systems with more energy-efficient motors.”

The careful use of this resource is a key aspect of Mission:Zero and the company’s environmental policy,” says Daniel König, Head of the “Water Usage” action area. Audi aims to use water sparingly and efficiently. By 2035, the Four Rings plans to roughly halve its ecologically weighted water consumption at its sites in Ingolstadt, Neckarsulm, Győr, San José Chiapa and Brussels. “This is an ambitious target and a major contribution toward greater sustainability for the company,” explains Daniel König. The vision for the future? “In the long term, we also want to be independent when it comes to water.”

Audi is pursuing a hotspot-based approach to water consumption and will first tackle those sites where availability is critical or consumption is particularly high. The company has defined four measures for the conscious and sparing use of water.

First: more efficient processes and state-of-the-art water-saving technologies, for example in paint shops and in various galvanizing baths or adapted leak testing processes during assembly.

Second: closed water cycles in which the water is treated and reused multiple times within the plant.

Third: increased use of rainwater.

And fourth: no use of drinking water in production.

Total volume of wastewater discharge in m³/vehicle

Natural resources are important production factors and a basis for industrial added value. However, resources are limited. The goal is not to use raw materials faster than they can be replaced by nature and its ecosystems, thus ensuring sustainable renewal. “At Audi, we want to use resources even more effectively and efficiently than we have in the past. To this end, we are continuing to develop our skills and approaches so that we ultimately use less,” explains László Horváth, Head of the “Resource Efficiency” action area. 

Resource efficiency starts with the correct use of materials throughout the production process and ends with material recycling as late as possible. László Horváth: “Our goal is to feed materials into cycles because that saves resources and energy that would otherwise be needed to produce new raw materials.” Wherever technically and economically feasible, closed loops are thus to become an integral part of the automotive value chain at Audi.

The target for this action area is to reduce the amount of waste per vehicle within the plant by 10 percent by 2025 (base year: 2019) and increase the proportion of material recycled by 10 percentage points (base year: 2019). Other than that, reducing disposable waste remains the top priority. The goal is to decrease the volume by 35 percent compared with the base year 2010. According to László Horváth, three aspects in particular help to achieve these targets.

First: close collaboration. “In the past, each Audi production site developed its own solutions for reducing waste without networking with other sites. Mission:Zero has changed that. We now work together and share our best practices.”

Second: material flow analyses, which are detailed input/output analyses. “These help to identify the greatest potential and produce a ‘Go to Zero’ checklist which we then work through successively,” explains Horváth.

Third: data-driven environmental protection using digital tools. “Our CO₂ calculator, which is currently being tested at several sites, will help our colleagues in Logistics and Procurement to take the right decisions on packaging materials.”

What does it take to successfully advance biodiversity? Antje Arnold, Head of the “Biodiversity” action area, is certain: “Ambitious goals. Because you can’t achieve ambitious goals if you don’t set them – and would fall far short of what could actually be achieved.” Thanks to this philosophy and a lot of persistence, Antje Arnold can look back at 2022 with satisfaction and forward to 2023 with anticipation. One thing is especially important to the success of the project: raising awareness.

“Raising awareness means ensuring that we all understand that our planet’s biodiversity is the basis for human life and that we must commit to preserving and reinstating it,” explains Antje Arnold. “To be honest, we’re at the same place now with this issue as we were with climate change 15 years ago. Back then, only few people were concerned about climate change – today, we can all feel the effects in our everyday lives.” For this reason, Antje Arnold and her colleagues are trying to generate enthusiasm for the issue – at the plant and beyond. Alongside local biodiversity projects that include renaturalizing open spaces at all sites and greater networking of the company with NGOs, governments and the immediately neighboring communities, the biodiversity index is a particular help.

This index was a joint development with Volkswagen and records 58 biodiversity parameters for five Audi production sites. Factors include the degree of ground sealing at a site, the number of native plant species found at a site, campaigns to raise employee awareness and external conservation projects. Antje Arnold explains: “Projects undertaken in collaboration with external conservation initiatives are an important factor of the index. They enable us to extend our sphere of activity beyond the factory limits, raise awareness of us as a brand and boost our image.” For example, Audi employees were able to work with the regional bird protection society to maintain renaturalized spaces outside the factory fence.

The advantage of the index is that it makes it easier to track progress, sites are comparable and the effectiveness of individual measures is quantifiable. Of course, this index is also coupled with an ambitious goal. Arnold: “By 2025, we want to increase our index by 50 percentage points, achieving an average of half of the biodiversity index across all Audi plants.”