The Volkswagen Group is raising the bar for environmental protection higher and has set itself ambitious new sustainability targets. In light of this, the Group will be spending well over two thirds of its entire €62.4 billion investment program for the coming five years directly or indirectly in ever more efficient vehicles, new powertrains and technologies as well as environmentally compatible production at its plants all over the world. “Geneva 2012 marks the start of a fundamental ecological restructuring of the Volkswagen Group”, Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn, Chairman of the Volkswagen Group Board of Management, announced on Monday on the eve of the Geneva International Motor Show. “Our declared goal is to make Volkswagen the leading automaker in ecological terms, too.”
Volkswagen stands for responsible conduct towards employees, society and the environment. “That is the fundamental element and core of our Strategy 2018. To take pole position and to sustain that lead over the long term, you have to understand all these dimensions of our business and to practice them convincingly at every level,” Winterkorn said, and continued: “We are raising the bar much higher when it comes to sustainability.” In this context, he stated that the Group would be reducing CO2 emissions by its European new vehicle fleet by some 30 percent during the period 2006 to 2015. “As a result, emissions by the Volkswagen Group fleet in 2015 will be below the important threshold of 120 grams CO2 per kilometer for the first time,” Winterkorn announced. He went on to say that every new model generation would on average be 10 to 15 percent more efficient than its predecessor.
