Industry to Unite in Volvo's Construction Climate Challenge

Volvo Construction Equipment has launched a new initiative working with partners to promote sustainability throughout the entire construction industry and provide funding for environmental research.

The initiative will stretch the length of the construction industry’s value chain, from extraction and production of building materials, to road and general construction, to demolition and recycling.

The Construction Climate Challenge (CCC) aims to create a dialogue with industry representatives, academics and politicians, as well as providing funding for new research and sharing existing knowledge and resources to help the industry make a difference for generations to come.

Volvo CE President, Martin Weissburg, said: “We’ve been working on reducing emissions through our own internal initiatives for many years – and to considerable success. In December 2013, for example, we achieved carbon neutrality at our articulated hauler production facility in Braås, Sweden. However, we cannot address climate issues by ourselves.

“We joined the Volvo Group’s commitment to the WWF Climate Savers program in 2012, becoming the first construction equipment manufacturer to do so – but still that’s not enough,” he adds.

The CCC’s first step involves evaluating existing research on environmental management, identifying research that still needs to be carried out and then making this information readily available to interested parties in the industry.  

To this end, Volvo CE invited researchers, professors and PhD students from around the world, as well as R&D employees working at the company, to a two-day workshop on climate change in September 2013. The participants determined a total of 112 activities within four research themes, such as sustainable business models, that a working party of Volvo CE employees will now refine and discuss with the other CCC participants. 

In the future researchers will be able to apply for funding for projects falling within these themes, while participants will be kept up-to-date with all the latest findings.

Volvo CE said it was already funding studies within its own Manufacturing Research department (part of Operations Europe).

Weissburg concluded: “Our research department has already made a good start but we have a long way to go and realize we can make a bigger impact on climate change if we work together – with academics, politicians and industry peers.

“It is our aim for the CCC to become the default arena for discussion around climate research, project funding and strategy implementation in the construction industry over the next 10 years. If we can achieve this, we can make a useful contribution on reducing the industry’s impact on climate change.”

Visit www.ConstructionClimateChallenge.com for more information or  

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