BMW: a naturally sustainable leader

There are certain criteria involved in buying a car nowadays; some of these we could define as “mathematical”, such as price or performance, easily comparable between makes and models. There are also more subjective factors, that depend on our personal tastes, such as the shape, or the combination of lines and colours that define a car’s style.

In reality, a car is a very complex system, the result of new technologies, innovative materials and human resources. Along with this, in the age of globalisation, consumers are required to pay more attention and be more informed about the whole production process that lets us turn the ignition key and give us that feeling of excitement. A crucial aspect of this process is the “sustainability” issue, whether this is social or environmental. The Dow Jones Sustainability Index (the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index – DJSI World – covers the top 10% of the biggest 2,500 companies in the Dow Jones World Index in terms of ‘economic, environmental and social criteria) classifies manufacturers according to parameters based on the level of sustainability of their industrial processes. At the top of this scale are two of the most famous makes in the world, the German BMW and the Japanese Toyota. As we are dealing with the subject of Techno-ecology in this issue, we chose to visit the BMW headquarters in Munich, and one of its plants at Regensburg, to understand how a company becomes a world leader in sustainability.

Regensburg is a historic medieval city, in the heart of the Bavarian countryside. The car plant, only three kilometres outside the historic city centre, appears unexpectedly, hidden behind a tall, dense avenue of trees. The buildings in the industrial area are deliberately grey-blue in colour, constructed from a material that reflects the surrounding colours, blending into the green of the trees and the blue of the sky. Jochen Mueller, the communications manager for BMW production, accompanies us on our visit; the tour starts with the initial production stage, where huge presses create the various parts of the bodywork. A weight of 8100 tonnes falls heavily onto the sheet metal to be moulded, and it is here that we observe the first of many technical solutions that are designed to improve environmental performance.

The base of the press rests on a “floating” surface, created from a complex bridge system, which absorbs the impact of 8100 tonnes, avoiding the crash that one would expect to hear; this is also respect for nature. As we move on towards the spraying area, we wonder to what extent ecosustainability is appreciated by consumers, “at this time it is probably becoming increasingly important, but what you see here is the result of a far-sighted project that began 30 years ago, when people still thought natural resources would last for ever”. We now come to a stage of production considered to be one of the most polluting – but not here. In Regensburg, as in the BMW plants in Leipzig and Dingolfing (all plants use water based paint for the different paint layers. Emissions from solvents sank therefore significantly. For the vehicle’s last functional coat of paint, which protects the vehicle’s paintwork and gives the car its brilliant surface the BMW Group uses paint powder coat at its plants in Regensburg, Dingolfing and Leipzig), the paint powder is fixed onto the bodywork using an electromagnetic system, without using water – technology experimented by the Bavarian company.

Nowadays, any kind of company could use this eco-friendly system, but no other makes have chosen to do so. Walking down the long assembly lines, apart from the infinite number of freneticallymoving robots, we can see plain old bins, similar to those we see in our towns and cities, but with a small, simple but ingenious solution: a bar code. All the waste material (whether it’s plastic packaging, pallet wood or pieces of metal) is divided into various receptacles, in a kind of large-scale recycling plant. Thanks to the bar codes, each bin is monitored and directed towards the appropriate disposal site. A computer controls everything, checking the production of waste, highlighting the stages where performance can be improved.

We round off our visit with a look at the power plant that supplies the energy for all production and management areas. Five enormous turbines (it is one gas turbine and four gas engines) fed by natural gas, methane, keep the production of carbon dioxide – the main culprit responsible for the hole in the ozone layer – well below the rigorous German limits. But how much do all these innovations cost? “A lot, but not as much as the savings and benefits that come from the resulting flexibility and production efficiency. BMW invests 8% of its turnover in innovation and is one of the car manufacturers with the largest profits”. In this case, safeguarding the environment is a good deal, not just a cost, but a long-term vision is required.

As many people know, modern cars are created from a working relationship between the parent company and a large number of small and large suppliers, who supply other competitors as well as providing headrests, rear lights and other parts.

BMW asks each of its suppliers to comply with a protocol, developed by BMW itself, which guarantees respect for the environment and labour, otherwise they can lose the order. This makes the entire system “clean”, and spreads awareness of respect for the environment. Being eco-sustainable therefore means investing heavily in technology, while establishing significant economic savings and the chance to convey to customers that the final price also depends on these efforts, not just on a more or less attractive shape. The workers are arriving for the second shift. Most of them arrive by bus; 35 lines covering a radius of up to 100 km. The company pays 75% of the fare, which helps to free up the roads of Regensburg and significantly reduces the level of traffic pollution. A curious decision for a car manufacturer.