Environment Day – Maruti Suzuki Innovations to Reduce Emissions & water use & save over 8.3lakh tonnes of CO2
Maruti Suzuki India has introduced a series of innovations across its products and manufacturing processes that contain emission and lower water use. The Company has saved an estimated over 8.3 lakh tonnes of CO2 emission over the past decade through introduction of CNG, LPG and Smart Hybrid vehicles.
Maruti Suzuki has been consistently achieving improvements in fuel efficiency in the conventional petrol engine and diesel engine vehicles. The efforts have led to nearly 20% fuel efficiency improvement in compact cars in both gasoline and diesel vehicles. This is achieved through focused innovations such as new generation platforms, friction reduction in drive train and improvement in drive-line losses.
The innovative next generation HEARTECT platform lowers the CO2 emission by 6-8% while offering superior performance and safety. Blockbuster models such as the Baleno, IGNIS, Swift and Dzire, built on the HEARTECT platform, are thus more efficient with superior performance. These models meet the advanced safety norms, leading to a win-win for customers and the environment.
At its manufacturing facilities, Maruti Suzuki has reduced water consumption per vehicle manufactured by 6% in 2017-18, compared to the previous year. At the same time, there is a 1% reduction in CO2 emission while manufacturing every vehicle over the past year.
Reinforcing Maruti Suzuki’s commitment to the environment, Mr. Kenichi Ayukawa, Managing Director & CEO, Maruti Suzuki, said, “Maruti Suzuki is working systematically to reduce vehicle emissions and the impact of manufacturing on the environment. The Company has been consciously introducing innovative technologies to make products environment friendly. Our innovative vehicle platform, HEARTECT, helps us to lower CO2 emissions between 6 to 8 per cent even as it enables us to offer a superior drive performance. Going forward, we will continue our focus on investing in new technologies and further bring down CO2 emissions per vehicle. As part of our effort to use renewable source of energy, in this fiscal we plan to install a 5MW solar power plant at our Gurgaon campus. At Manesar, our existing 1MW solar power plant will be complemented by an additional 0.5MW solar plant.”
Dry Wash to save water
Use of Maruti Suzuki’s Dry Wash system, saved a whopping 285 million litres water in 2017-18. Nearly, 3 million vehicles were cleaned using Dry Wash system in 2017-18. Maruti Suzuki uses the environment friendly Dry Wash system to conserve water, shorten wash time and improve final wash quality. Presently, 588 Maruti Suzuki workshops across 186 cities use the Dry Wash system.
Product Designing
On product designing, Maruti Suzuki has developed the full vehicle virtual validation capability, which has helped to induce efficiency in the product development processes. This leads to reduced physical testing of vehicles. Such virtual validation techniques help to reduce carbon footprint.
Promoting Green value chain
Maruti Suzuki has a stringent Green Procurement Policy in place where in all partners are encouraged to align with Green Procurement guidelines. More than 85% vendor plants have already acquired ISO -14001 Certification and others are on course. The Company will soon adopt International Material Data capturing system to study parameters like ASR (Automotive Shredder Residue), RRR (Reuse, Recycle and Recover) and substances of concern (like Pb, Hg, Cd, Cr) across all models so that prohibited substances can be identified and eliminated. This initiative will strengthen end of life system (ELV) for vehicles. For exports Maruti Suzuki will align with the European Union system of classification, labelling and packaging of chemical substances adopt VCI Packaging (Volatile Corrosion Inhibitors) guidelines for packaging materials. By aligning with EU norms the disclosures on components will be comprehensive.
