On the occasion of International Recycling Day, Seat has announced that it is focusing its environmental improvement actions this year on reducing waste. Over the past eight years, Seat has managed to generate 34 per cent less waste in its facilities, and in the next few months is going to implement measures designed to reduce production waste by up to 60 per cent in the next six years.

Among other initiatives, Seat is going to prevent waste generation and address optimising separation in order to obtain more recycling and reuse of production waste. The company also aims to further refine the waste generated at different stages of the production process, such as paint and sealant slurry. In the last eight years, the company has successfully reduced its environmental footprint by 34% on average. Since 2010, when Seat launched its ecomotive factory environmental strategy, the company has lowered its power and water consumption by 21.6 per cent and 30.9 per cent, respectively. In addition, it has decreased its CO2 and volatile organic compound emissions by 63.3 per cent and 21.4 per cent and generated 34.2 per cent less waste.

Seat vice-president for production and logistics Christian Vollmer pointed out that: “We aim to continue to improve in order to become a model company in every aspect – for the quality and production efficiency of our factories, as well as for finding solutions to the paradigm shift that businesses and society are faced with, where recycling, emissions reduction and environmental care are becoming increasingly more important.” 

The next milestone in Seat’s environmental strategy is to improve its indicators by 50 per cent by 2025. The company is already working on additional systems, such as an installation that aims to recover the heat emitted by the Martorell factory chimneys, which in terms of energy will enable a savings equivalent to the annual consumption of 760 households, as well as a reduction in CO2 emissions that is equal to the absorbing capacity of 250,000 trees.