2Sustain

General Motors believes that sustainability goals are best achieved when directly integrated into its business model, and the company reinforced this commitment last week with the release of its first global sustainability report since restructuring as a new company.

In particular, I was pleased to see that the report includes the incredibly forward-thinking declaration that what GM needs to grow its business is aligned with the needs of society –namely, energy alternatives and advanced technologies to help reduce dependency on petroleum, improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions, as well as bold thinking about personal mobility in the 21st century.

Looking back over the past year, GM says it has made marked progress in water conservation, renewable energy use, wildlife habitat preservation, recycling waste and material repurposing. Plus, the company is expanding its Greening Supply Chain Initiative to additional suppliers and joint ventures in China, its largest national market. In 2010, GM also earned the title clean-tech patent leader by the Clean Energy Patent Growth Index for the advanced technology, fuel efficiency and overall sustainability-related aspects of its products.

Looking ahead to the next decade, GM plans to achieve even more. The company says it will: (more…)

Last week, General Motors announced that 62 of its manufacturing plants have achieved “zero landfill” status by recycling or reusing all normal plant wastes. (A chart listing the plants is available here.)

This significant achievement means that 43 percent of GM’s global manufacturing facilities no longer send any production waste to landfills. In 2008, the company announced that it wanted to convert half of its manufacturing facilities to zero landfill facilities by the end of 2010. As of this month, GM has met 87 percent of that goal.

On average, more than 97 percent of waste materials from GM’s zero landfill plants are recycled or reused and about three percent is converted to energy at waste-to-energy facilities replacing fossil fuels. All in all, more than 2 million tons of waste materials –including 650,000 tons of scrap metal, 16,600 tons of wood, 21,600 tons of cardboard, and 3,600 tons of plastic –will be recycled or reused at GM plants worldwide this year alone.

An additional 45,000 tons will be converted to energy at waste-to-energy facilities.

According to GM, even the smallest piece of waste is put to a productive reuse. For example: (more…)