Lamborghini's Production Process Becomes Carbon Neutral

Automotive  

Lamborghini is well known for making supercars powered by large-displacement engines, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a company that is concerned about the environment. The automaker has just become the first automotive company in Italy to become CO2-neutral certified.

Global automakers may be manufacturing eco-friendly vehicles that don't emit any harmful gases into the atmosphere, but the way those vehicles are built has a significant negative environmental impact. Some car manufacturers are putting a lot of effort into curbing the amount of carbon dioxide that is produced during the various stages of a car's production process, but up until now, none of them have managed to achieve a net zero carbon footprint.

Italian car maker Lamborghini has been investing a lot of resources in order to change that, and recently received a carbon-neutral certification from Det Norske Veritas Germanischer Lloyd (DNV GL), the world's leading certification organization in the field of renewable and alternative energy, becoming the first company to obtain that certificate.

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This certification was granted to Lamborghini for its factory and headquarters in Sant'Agata Bolognese, in the Italian province of Bologna, thanks to the installation of a new trigeneration system, which generates electricity from natural gas, eliminating the production of greenhouse gas emissions that are involved in a conventional car manufacturing process.

"Sustainability is one of our company objectives and we subscribe to a strong undertaking of environmental responsibility towards our stakeholders and the area where the company operates," said Stephan Winkelmann, Automobili Lamborghini President and CEO. "The new plant and the certification we have earned today are part of our sustainable growth program. Our goal is to keep the plant CO2-neutral, even after the expansion that will take place in the upcoming years with the introduction of the third Lamborghini model.”

"Our goal is to keep the plant CO2-neutral, even after the expansion that will take place in the upcoming years with the introduction of the third Lamborghini model."

Lamborghini says that the new system will help reduce CO2 emissions produced at its manufacturing facility by 820 tons per year, and that it will be able to generate 9,800 MWh annually, which is enough to power the entire city the facility is located in.

In addition to the newly-installed trigeneration plant, Lamborghini is now using a new district heating system that transports hot water from a biogas cogeneration plant near the company's headquarters to the factory, which helps save an additional 1,800 tons of CO2 per year. The car maker's sustainability efforts don't stop there, though, as it also uses electricity generated by its 180,00-square feet photovoltaic plant, and has planted 10,000 young oak trees to neutralize the effect of its carbon emissions.

All these initiatives for improving its energy efficiency show that Lamborghini is really committed to protecting the environment, which might seem a bit odd, given that the vehicles it builds have an extremely low fuel economy rating with pretty high CO2 emission levels. But, the company has been working on plug-in hybrid technologies lately, unveiling the Asterion LPI 910-4 concept last year, which delivers 910 horsepower and has a 30-mile all-electric driving range, and has managed to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of its vehicles by 25 percent.

Over the past 5 years, Lamborghini has spent more than $38 million on programs aimed at reducing its CO2 emissions and it intends to further curb its overall carbon footprint by focusing its research and development efforts on improving combustion, implementing efficient hybrid drivetrain solutions and increasing the use of biofuels in the manufacturing process.

By Jordan Perch

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Author Bio - Jordan Perch is an automotive fanatic and “safe driving” specialist. He is a writer for DMV.com, which is a collaborative community designed to help ease the stress and annoyance of “dealing with the DMV.”