#TogetherWeChange – Audi at the GreenTech Festival 2022

The GREENTECH FESTIVAL 2022 offers a platform to anyone who wants to discuss sustainable development, climate, and environmental protection while fostering concepts for a sustainable future. Apart from Audi, more than 100 other exhibitors will offer presentations. The festival program includes open forums, panel discussions, keynote speeches, and boot camps.

“Direct dialog with various stakeholders – including critics – is very important to us,” emphasizes Silja Pieh, Chief Strategy Officer at AUDI AG. “Exchanging knowledge and seeing other people’s innovative sustainability concepts is enriching for us.” Another highlight is the GREEN AWARDS, which honor engaged individuals, institutions, companies, startups, and innovations for their ideas about greater sustainability. Linda Kurz, Head of Product Marketing in Germany, is among the laudators for awards, which will be presented on Wednesday (June 22). The GREENTECH FESTIVAL was founded by sustainability entrepreneur Nico Rosberg and engineers Marco Voigt and Sven Krüger.

By 2030, Audi wants to incrementally reduce vehicle-specific carbon emissions by 40 percent over reference year 2018. To be able to reach that ambitious goal, it will also have to intervene in its upstream supply chain processes in a number of ways. Audi was able to save over 480,000 tons of carbon equivalents (CO2e) in 2021 thanks to renewable energy, low-carbon materials, and secondary materials in its supply chain.

With its circular economy strategy, Audi intends to establish more and more closed material cycles. Raw materials are supposed to be reintroduced into the production process once they are no longer being used. One example is car glass: in a pilot project, Audi and its partners Reiling Glas Recycling, Saint-Gobain Glass, and Saint-Gobain Sekurit are turning old car glass into new windows for the Audi Q4 e-tron.

The Mission:Zero environmental program is Audi’s roadmap to sustainable production and logistics. The endpoint: carbon-neutral production sites by 2025. Audi Hungaria has reached this target already in 2020 and Audi Brussels became the world’s first carbon-neutral high-volume production plant in the premium segment in 2018. At the Neckarsulm site, assembly of the Audi e-tron GT is net carbon-neutral. Visitors can experience the electrically powered Coupé up close through the Audi driving experience in the outdoor area at the former airport and at the Audi exhibition stand. Moreover, the plant in Neckarsulm is using a pilot facility to test ways of using water from an adjacent purification facility in production, once it has been processed appropriately. At the Ingolstadt site, Audi has been using processed wastewater as service water since 2019.

For quick charging in urban areas, Audi is building up its peerless Audi charging hubs in more and more cities. Quick-charging stations with high-power charging points. Used lithium ion batteries function as power storage systems for the charging cubes. These second-life batteries come from disassembled Audi test vehicles. Audi particularly wants its quick-charging stations to reach drivers in urban environments who do not have their own charging options.

Feedback for the initial pilot stations in Nuremberg has been consistently positive. Audi recorded roughly 3,100 charges at the Nuremberg location between January and the end of April 2022. There will also be an Audi charging hub in Zürich in the second half of the year. Additional locations will follow, including in Salzburg and Berlin.

The Audi Environmental Foundation is introducing a selection of its funding projects, including the German-Indian startup Nunam. This new non-profit is putting three electric rickshaws on India’s roads. They are powered by second-life batteries taken from test vehicles in the Audi e-tron test fleet. Nunam developed its three prototypes together with the training team at Audi’s Neckarsulm site. The electric rickshaws are to be used by a non-profit organization and enable women to participate in the rickshaw trade while providing them with a safe mode of transportation.

In Brazil, the Audi Environmental Foundation, together with Audi do Brasil, is supporting the NGO Litro de Luz Brasil. In the Amazon region, these project partners are providing three villages that do not have electricity with solar lanterns, which will raise their living standards and make them safer at night.

With its URBANFILTER project, the Audi Environmental Foundation and the Technical University of Berlin are developing smart filters for road drainage. They prevent environmentally harmful particles like tire wear from being flushed into the water via the sewer system.

Anyone who would like to engage with the Audi Environmental Foundation will have the opportunity to do so on the evening of June 23 while plogging. Get your running shoes on and rid the environment of trash while staying in shape. Anyone who will not be on-site in Berlin or would rather plog in a different location can register and join the running group virtually.