Maruti Suzuki India Limited released its extensive environment strategy on 5th May 2012, the World Environment Day to bring down emissions of its operations and reduce greenhouse emission of its vehicles.
On the occasion, Mr. Shinzo Nakanishi, Managing Director and CEO said, “We have a well thought-out plan to minimize resource use, to become a greener Company and safeguard the environment. As we expand our business and put in newer facilities, our focus will be to adopt and invest in new environment friendly technologies and practices to minimize the impact of our business on the environment.”
Some of the efforts to bring down environmental impacts of Maruti’s operations include:
Lower carbon footprint in manufacturing operations:
The Company will bring down carbon footprint of its manufacturing operations through improved operational efficiencies and constant innovation. This approach in the recent past, has brought significant results. The power consumption per car for instance has come down by nearly 30 per cent in Gurgaon in the last decade and by about the same percentage in Manesar in five years. The Company is committed to make more efforts in the area of energy efficiency. This would be especially relevant for the upcoming production facilities like Manesar Plant C. In addition, the Company is also helping its vendor partners to quickly adopt these energy efficient technologies. 66% of Maruti Suzuki’s tier I suppliers are ISO 14001 certified. The Company targets to make 100 % tier I suppliers ISO 14001 certified by end of 2012-13.
Identify, adopt and invest in new environment friendly technologies
The Company also pledged to invest in new, cost-effective technologies that bring down greenhouse gas emissions of its facilities. The Manesar B plant commissioned in September 2011 is the first car plant in the country that is 100 % LED. With this innovation in place, Manesar B Plant is significantly more energy efficient than any of the other plants, including the Manesar A Plant which was commissioned in Feb2006.
In addition, for the Gurgaon facility, The Company has put in place an energy audit team which is systematically identifying equipment and machinery with high energy consumption, and replacing it with more environment friendly options.
Bring down the carbon footprint of its vehicles by enhancing fuel efficiency.
As the company, introduces new models in the market it continues to bring them on next generation engine technologies that assure high fuel efficiencies with lower emissions. In the latest instance of the new Swift and new Swift DZire, the Company’s engineers have significantly reduced emissions by 4-5 per cent% per kilometer and enhanced efficiencies by working on vehicle aerodynamics besides adopting several innovative weight reduction techniques.The recently introduced Ertiga offers unmatched fuel efficiency of 20.77 kmpl, almost unheard of amongst multi utility vehicles. As such the Ertiga is starting a new trend of environment friendly people movers!
Work closely with the Government to formulate environment friendly policies to curb greenhouse gas emission
The Company is actively supporting the government, in laying down a robust policy framework to promote electric and hybrid vehicles in the country. It is also part of government efforts to introduce corporate fleet emission norms for 2015 and 2020.
