Volkswagen Pune Plant recorded promising results in 2015 under its ‘Think Blue.
Volkswagen Pune Plant recorded promising results in 2015 under its ‘Think Blue. Factory.’ programme that aims at achieving sustainability through environment-friendly manufacturing. The programme was put in place in the year 2012 to make manufacturing process as environment-friendly as possible.
In 2015, the Volkswagen India plant reduced CO2 emissions by 26.1 percent and energy consumption by 27.5 percent. The heat recovery system installed in Paint Shop played a major part in saving the energy as it resulted in 80% saving in natural gas requirement for hot water generation.LED’s were installed instead of normal tube lights in shop areas, optimisation of air handling units and roof extractor operation. With the help of recycled water, the total water consumption was reduced by 17.6 %. Most importantly, the emission of volatile organic compounds was reduced by over 11 percent as the painting processes in the Paint Shop were optimised and the content of automation was increased which resulted in the reduction of ‘Waste Generation’ and ultimately ‘VOC Emissions’.
Pune Plant is one of the 27 Volkswagen automotive manufacturing facilities worldwide that follow the ‘Think Blue. Factory.’ and which have a combined target of reduction of 25% in the defined areas of ‘Energy Consumption’, ‘CO 2Emissions’, ‘Water Consumption’, ‘Waste Generation’ and ‘VOC Emissions’.
Dr. Andreas Lauermann, President and Managing Director, Volkswagen India Private Limited said, “Volkswagen Pune Plant has been working consistently towards achieving environment-friendly manufacturing from 2012 and has already recorded an impressive 20.6 % reduction overall through five defined areas of focus. Volkswagen is committed towards sustainability and the measure undertaken by our teams working on ‘Think Blue. Factory’ programme ensure that we fulfil our self-defined targets.” He further added, “We do not stop here. We are investigating and implementing more and more measures that contribute to environment-friendly manufacturing and protect our resources for the future. We also have a knowledge-sharing platform wherein we and our global colleagues share all the implementations which are studied and applied as per relevance for the local plants. Through this, we are ensuring that the best practices travel worldwide and contribute on a bigger scale in the respective plants.”
Volkswagen Heat recovery system installed at the Pune manufacturing plant