Daimler India Commercial Vehicles (DICV) announced that it aims to make its Chennai plant operations 100 per cent CO2 neutral by 2025 and it has unveiled a series of goals under ‘Seven Statements for Sustainability’, to reduce its carbon footprint and protect the local environment.
“Driving sustainability in our production and operations has been a key focus for DICV since our inception. Our efforts so far have already helped us reach 72 per cent CO2 neutrality in our plant, and we plan to push this to 100 per cent by 2025. We will work continuously towards a sustainable future for our stakeholders and society as a whole,” Satyakam Arya, CEO & MD of DICV, said in a statement.
In the first phase of the roadmap unveiling, DICV on Friday announced its goals for sustainability in operations, laying out initiatives planned to 2025 and beyond.
Power use
Under its ‘Seven Statements for Sustainability’ roadmap, it seeks to more than double the amount of captive solar power generated along with purchase of wind power and bagasse-based green co-generation. It will change all internal shuttles to electric vehicles
DICV will also increase green cover density of Chennai plant by at least 10 per cent by 2025 by planting mini forests of native trees and increasing bio-diversity and planting an additional 2,000 trees using organic farming methods.
The company proposes to reduce energy consumption of production shop by at least 8 per cent by 2025 by upgrading all lighting to LEDs and installing more efficient motors and using IoT devices to optimise usage of equipment like chillers and compressors.
Water consumption will be cut by 30 per cent, while aiming for 100 per cent water self-reliance at the plant by 2025 by measures like reusing effluent water generated from operations in paint shop manufacturing process
The Oragadam factory, which makes BharatBenz brand of trucks and buses for the Indian market, will increase usage of bio-degradable plastic in packaging process up to 50 per cent by 2025. It will also contribute to betterment of nearby villages and societies by improving drinking water facilities and installing solar lighting in community around Oragadam.
Some of the factory's existing sustainability initiatives include the installation of an energy-generation plant with over 10,000 polycrystalline solar power panels (compensates for around 3,300 tonnes of CO2 emissions/year) and a storage pond that holds more than 60,000 kilolitres of water, said the statement.