Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) has won the Best Sustainable Rental Project of the Year Award for its energy management at the 2020 European Rental Awards.
The awards, which are organized and judged by the European Rental Association (ERA), were announced June 30 during the European Rental Awards digital event hosted by International Rental News. The award is a testament to the company’s long term focus on sustainability and ability to achieve significant environmental sustainability improvements.
The energy management initiative that secured the award is just one of the many projects in the company’s focus on environmental care. The success of the program lies in building a company-wide embedded culture dedicated to avoiding waste energy and continuously improving. The ERA is supporting the industry evolution that places higher value on the carbon life-cycle of construction equipment throughout the machine life, which begins with the manufacturer in the production phase.
Volvo CE has been a member of the WWF Climate Savers program since 2012. Its 2015-2020 commitment was about making a significant reduction in its global energy consumption and CO2 output throughout the value chain, demonstrating industry leadership and developing innovations towards a low carbon society. In the last five years, the company has:
- Implemented more than 50 GWhs of energy savings
- Switched half of its global energy supply to 100% renewable sources
- Reduced its idle electricity use by 48%
- Reduced its energy use per unit delivered to its customers by 27%
- Started a journey of CO2 neutral production facilities – Braas, in Sweden, is already 100% neutral factory since 2014
Niklas Nillroth, vice president of sustainability and public affairs at Volvo CE, says, “Volvo CE’s purpose is to build the world we want to live in, so we are extremely proud to win this award, which recognizes our sustainability efforts towards that goal. Our energy management approach has delivered significant benefits to the rental industry at a product life-cycle level, and we believe that the cultural approach taken can be shared and adopted by rental companies of all scales and sizes.”
