All Porsche Parts Will Now Be Made with Renewable Energy

The mandate applies to any contracts awarded for providing production material
for new vehicle projects. Porsche asserts that suppliers that are unwilling
to switch to certified renewable energy will no longer be considered for
contracts in the long term.

“Our battery cell suppliers have already had to use green energy since 2020; and
now, we are taking the next important step,” says Uwe-Karsten Städter,
Member of the Executive Board for Procurement at Porsche AG. “We stipulate
that our series suppliers also use only renewable energy to produce our
components, to help reduce CO2 emissions even further. We recognize that we have
a responsibility to ensure that supply chains are transparent and sustainable.”

In March, Porsche set itself an ambitious goal to be carbon neutral across its
entire value
chain
by 2030 — well ahead of automakers such as
Ford
(2050),
GM
(2040) and Jaguar Land
Rover
(2039). The sports car giant says that production within its German factories,
located in Zuffenhausen and Leipzig, is already carbon neutral through
the use of renewable energy and biogas.

From these carbon-neutral plants came Porsche’s first all-electric car, the
Taycan sedan, in 2019; and
it has become one of the automaker’s biggest
sellers.
Porsche claims the Taycan Cross Turismo, released earlier this year, is the
world’s first all-electric sports car to remain carbon neutral throughout its
entire service life. More EV series are in the pipeline.

Porsche’s supply chain is currently responsible for around 20 percent of the
company’s total greenhouse gas emissions; but it expects this percentage to rise
to around 40 by 2030, due to its increasing electrification of vehicles. But
Porsche is tackling this issue by ensuring its suppliers are adhering to its
sustainability standards going forward.

“By using only renewable energy sources, our suppliers are following our example
in our efforts to reach carbon-neutrality. We plan to have even more intensive
talks with our partners in order to drive forward improvements in our
sustainability. It is only by working together that we will be able to combat
ongoing climate change,” Städter explains.

And while Porsche continues to investments in electromobility, the company has
also teamed up with Siemens and several other energy companies to develop
synthetic, climate-neutral fuels
(e-fuels)
that it says will allow older Porsche models to stay on the road for longer,
sustainably. A pilot project in Chile is expected to yield the world’s first
integrated, commercial, industrial-scale plant for making the e-fuels — with
130,000 liters to be produced as early as 2022, and as many as 550 million
liters by 2026. The project will advantage of the excellent wind conditions in
southern Chile to produce the climate-neutral fuel through wind power.

“Electromobility is a top priority at Porsche,” said Porsche CEO Oliver
Blume. “[But] e-fuels are a worthwhile complement to that — if they’re
produced in parts of the world where a surplus of sustainable energy is
available. They are an additional element on the road to decarbonization. Their
advantages lie in their ease of application: e-fuels can be used in combustion
engines and plug-in hybrids, and can make use of the existing network of filling
stations. By using them, we can make a further contribution toward protecting
the climate. As a maker of high-performance, efficient engines, we have broad
technical expertise. We know exactly what fuel characteristics our engines need
in order to operate with minimal impact on the climate. Our involvement in the
world’s first commercial, integrated e-fuels plant supports the development of
the alternative fuels of the future.”

Thanks to its carbon-neutral plants, production of the Taycan series has been
carbon neutral since it was launched in 2019. Since 2020, this has been true for
all vehicles made at the company’s headquarters in Stuttgart, as well —
including the popular 911 and 718 models. At the start of 2021, the
Development Centre in Weissach — where the Macan and Panamera models
are produced — followed suit, making all the large Porsche sites already carbon
neutral in terms of operations.

Porsche says it will invest more than a billion euros over the next 10 years in
decarbonization measures — including wind turbines, solar power and other
climate-protection measures — in order to reach its sustainability goals: “We
don’t want to compensate, but to avoid. We don’t want to buy CO2
certificates
from other companies; we want to avoid emissions wherever we can. Where energy
cannot be saved, we use electricity from renewable sources,” Blume said.

And by 2030, the aim is for more than 80 percent of all new vehicles sold to be
purely electric or plug-in hybrid models: As early as 2025, at least 50 percent
of new Porsches sold will feature an electric drive.