GM to Spend $40M on Clean-Energy Programs to Offset Year's Worth of Chevy CO2
By Scott Doggett November 23, 2010
In what we believe is an unprecedented move by an automaker, General Motors has pledged to invest $40 million in clean-energy projects to offset the carbon dioxide it expects will be emitted in 2011 from the 1.9 million vehicles Chevrolet anticipates selling in the U.S. over the next year.
According to the EPA, 8 million metric tons of CO2 is the amount released into the atmosphere by one year of electricity used in 970,874 homes or the annual CO2 reduction from 1.7 million acres of pine forest. According to GM, it's also the annual amount of CO2 those 1.9 million Chevys will spew.
GM said the clean-energy investments, to be implemented in the next three to five years, "may" include the following projects:
- Providing energy-efficient technology, such as smart energy sensors and solar panels to schools and other community-based facilities in need of upgrades to decrease carbon dioxide emissions and reduce heating bills;
- Supporting wind farms and solar projects that deliver renewable energy to the grid and also help family farms increase their revenues per acre;
- Capturing flammable methane from community landfills that delivers clean energy to the grid and improves local air quality and safety;
- Contributing to forestry projects throughout America.
Since 1990, GM has decreased its manufacturing emissions by 60 percent. GM also has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to build fuel-efficient vehicles such as the Chevrolet Cruze Eco, which gets an EPA-estimated 42 mpg on the highway, and the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid.
Other GM initiatives include reducing water use by nearly 35 percent between 2005 and 2009 at manufacturing facilities worldwide; decreasing fossil fuel at GM plants by using landfill gas, hydro and solar power; recycling 90 percent of the waste the company generates; and operating 75 landfill-free facilities, more than half of its manufacturing plants globally.
Chevy will be making investments through third-party organizations such as Bonneville Environmental Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon. To define project criteria and the program's investment portfolio, GM has engaged environmental experts, non-government organizations and academics through the Climate Neutral Business Network.
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