BMW is getting serious about reducing its carbon footprint. Part of that comes down to electrified vehicles, but as dirty as battery production is, the company needs to do more. That’s why it’s turning to poop.
By the end of this decade, BMW is committed to source all its electricity from renewable sources, the automaker’s purchasing chief Markus Duesmann recently told a UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany.
According to Bloomberg, that includes a biomass plant in South Africa that runs on cow dung and chicken droppings. The facility in Rosslyn, Pretoria, assembles the 3 Series sedan, and was the company’s first foreign plant.
Its plant in Leipzig, Germany – where the 1 Series, 2 Series, X1, i3, and i8 are built – gets much of its power from wind turbines, and recently opened a battery farm on site. And the plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina (home to the X3, X4, X5, and X6) draws on methane power from a nearby landfill.
“When it comes to sustainable responsibility, we consider the entire value chain, from purchasing and production to the product and our mobility services as a comprehensive system of lifecycles,” said Duesmann. “Today, we already obtain 63% of our purchased electricity from renewable energies. And I’m proud to announce today that our new goal for the year 2020 will be 100%!”
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