Delivering on our commitment to sustainability
With comprehensive actions in Shenyang green plant
Expansion and Upgrade of solar PV system
Sustainability@BMW Shenyang Plants

(Shenyang) On December 1st, 2021, “Sustainability@BMW Shenyang Plants” event was held in BMW Brilliance Plant Dadong, which also marked Dadong Plant Solar PV system—a booster of renewable energy for BMW Brilliance —was officially put in place. By holding this event, BMW Shenyang Plant is taking pragmatic actions even further towards “Double Carbon” goals in smart manufacturing, delivering on its commitment to sustainable development.

Dr. Franz Decker, BMW Brilliance Senior Vice President of Technology and Manufacturing, David Shangguan, Senior Vice President of Human Resources, Shan Yi, Vice Mayor of Shenyang, Li Gang, Party secretary of Dadong CPC, media friends and suppliers who have always been the staunch supporters of BMW Brilliance’s sustainability jointly embarked on their journey to witness BMW Brilliance’s fruitful progress and empower the future of sustainable development.

Technological transformation and green production—Sustainability in the DNA of BMW

Dr. Franz Decker, Senior Vice President of Technology and Manufacturing of BMW Brilliance stated in his speech: “In China, we are determined to lead from the forefront as green plants driven by technology and innovation, and also an active promotor of sustainable methods in production. Firmly integrated the BMW Global sustainable core strategy, take circular economy principles of “Re-think, Re-duce, Re-use and Re-cycle” as the criterion, continuously improve and shape the future.”

David Shangguan, Senior Vice President of Human Resources of BMW Brilliance said in the following speech: “BMW Brilliance remains committed to ‘talent sustainability’ so as to promote the high-quality corporate development. It is long lasting reward for all parties that shape our corporate vision and CSR. We offer our employees career development plans, education programs as well as a more diversified, inclusive and open corporate culture, to facilitate synergy of employees and organization in the most pragmatic and effective way.”

Shan Yi, Vice Mayor of Shenyang, participated this event and said: “We will deepen practical cooperation with BMW Brilliance in terms of smart manufacturing, low-carbon development among other aspects as a way to share more opportunities of development and create fruitful achievements. We hope that BMW Brilliance will further scale up industrial chain to make products more suitable for Shenyang by its leading role and advantages. More efforts are needed to forge a new path of sustainable development that fits for the city, where mutual benefits and win-win cooperation will be achieved.”

Solar PV in plants——A transformation of renewable and clean energy

Shan Yi, Vice Mayor of Shenyang, Li Gang, Party secretary of Dadong CPC, Dr. Franz Decker, Senior Vice President of Technology and Manufacturing of BMW Brilliance, David Shangguan, Senior Vice President of Human Resources of BMW Brilliance and Project team members jointly unveiled the new solar PV system in the opening ceremony. The new energy system will generate more electricity than that of the preceding one, achieving self-sufficiency goal with surplus power fed into grid, as part of its efforts to green electricity. Led by “double carbon” goals, guests and media friends then toured Dadong Plant, and gained an in-depth understanding of sustainable production technologies of BMW Shenyang Plant as well as its utmost solutions to carbon reduction and energy mix optimization.

Highlighting sustainability across the entire value chain — An acceleration of “Double Carbon” goals

With sustainable management across the entire value chain, BMW Brilliance has dedicated itself to sustainability progress through state-of-the-art technologies and innovations. The sustainability @ BMW Shenyang intensely showcases six booth topics, highlighting the glorious achievements in BMW Shenyang plant across the spectrum of sustainability.

1. Renewable and clean energy

As a national level green plant, BMW Brilliance is committed to incorporating clean energy into manufacturing process. In this way, the first transaction quota between BMW Brilliance & SPIC marks the highest record. With the new solar PV system launched, it will generate more electricity than before, with even lower CO2 emissions.

2. Green transportation

To achieve a lighter environmental footprint, BMW Brilliance are embracing multi-modal transportation. 78% finished vehicles wholly or partially transport by rail, with CO2 emissions reduced by 51.3%. Additionally, E-trucks used for in-plant shuttle transportation reduce CO2 emissions. As of 2021, BMW Brilliance has invested and cooperated with third parties to set up 63 charging stations with a total of 578 charging piles in Shenyang, which has promoted the development of E-mobility in Shenyang.

3.Secondary material and circular

Raw material recycling remains a top priority, as exemplified by recycling of packaging, testing and recombination of retired HVBs in EVs, and reuse of scrap steel and aluminum. Particularly, BMW Brilliance has already achieved the “Closed Loop of Steel” and provided high quality scrap steel for steel suppliers and helped them increased scrap ratio by 3%. BMW Brilliance will invest new equipment and facilities to realize the separation of steel and aluminum, continuously to promote the recycling and reuse of metal waste and to contribute to CO2 reduction in supply chain.

4. Water reuse and recycling

BMW Brilliance channels its efforts to reduce water consumption and promote effective management of reclaiming water. In paint shop, incremental progress has been made in net zero consumption of industrial and domestic water with upgraded waste-water recycling system. In addition, water reuse will be scaled up in plants while adopting a range of water saving measures and improving wastewater management.

5.Waste classification and disposal

In order to achieve a truly sustainable business, waste is eliminated across all operations. In this regard, BMW Brilliance has repurposed end-of-life materials in new ways by developing innovative approaches:
• By optimizing the painting process and a new composition of the spraying raw materials, the emission of VOC into the atmosphere will be reduced by 72%; • About 170 tons of iron sludge waste from powertrain plant is no longer landfilled,100% of them recycled; • By separating the amount of concentrated oil wastewater generated in the pre-treatment process of painting, the wastewater output is reduced by 71%, and the amount of harmful wastewater treated by 120 tons per year is reduced.

6.Land use and biodiversity

Sustainability is closely intertwined with ecology and environmental protection. As a front runner in BMW’s global production network, the BMW Brilliance Shenyang plant has fully considered the concept of sponge city during the planning and implementation of the new project, actively adopted various soil and water conservation measures, and selected a landscape design with more biodiversity protection functions during the greening of the plant. In addition, BMW China and BMW Brilliance responded to the call of the UN and the Chinese government to put biodiversity on top agenda and took the lead in launching the “BMW Beautiful Homeland Initiative”, which is committed to biodiversity conservation and national parks construction in China.

As the event was drawing to a close, all of the participants got in a BMW iX3 during a field visit to the sustainability projects and gained an in-depth understanding of those efforts, ranging from CHP (Combined Heating and Power), solar PV in plants to water recycling & reuse system.

2021 sees the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan period in which development is pursued that is green, low-carbon and sustainable. As the biggest BMW production base globally, BMW Brilliance will utilize China Automotive Industry supply chain, progress on innovation technology and coordinate with partners with common goal, stride towards a greener, more sustainable future.