Award winner: sustainability prize for glass recycling
The “GlassLoop” project is embedded in Audi’s Act4Impact program for the supply chain. The program’s vision is to configure the effects of Audi’s supply chain to be as gentle as possible on people and the environment. It is an imposition that pays off: As one of three awardees, Audi has been honored with the German Award for Sustainability Projects in the “Recycling Concept” category. This award is granted by the Deutsches Institut für Service-Qualität (German Institute for Service Quality), the ntv news network, and DUP UNTERNEHMER magazine, sponsored by Brigitte Zypries (retired German Minister of the Economy).
Audi wants to establish additional material cycles in the future. The company wants to increase the use of secondary material where it makes ecological and economic sense. “It is our goal to recover as many materials as possible at a high level of quality and reuse them in production,” says Chairman of the Board of Management at AUDI AG, Markus Duesmann. This saves valuable primary materials and can reduce the environmental impact of products.
The goal of the circular economy is to preserve material grade and quality for as long as possible. That is critical for making the materials usable within the auto industry again and not relegating them to less demanding uses. One of Audi’s focal areas is post-consumer materials. That means, for example, materials from customer vehicles that have reached the end of their life cycle. The aim is to reduce downcycling, or the decline in the quality of the materials through the recycling process, as much as possible.
Audi will be demonstrating how it is possible to carry extremely diverse materials like steel, aluminum, and plastic in a cycle at its pavilion at the GREENTECH FESTIVAL. The festival is in its fifth year and will have more than 190 exhibitors, and around 120 speakers, and expects to bring in over 15,000 attendees. The program for Europe’s largest festival of green innovations, which will take place on the grounds of Berlin’s former Tegel airport, will include open forums, panels, keynote speeches, and boot camps. The GREENTECH FESTIVAL was founded by sustainability entrepreneur Nico Rosberg and engineers Marco Voigt and Sven Krüger.