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The United Nations (UN) has officially recognised Volvo Cars for its ground-breaking electrification strategy even as it commended Volvo Cars’ president and chief executive, Håkan Samuelsson, for taking bold and disruptive action in the area of electric vehicles evolution.
The recognition came in the latest report from the UN’s Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative. The report, launched earlier in the week at the Global Compact’s annual high-level meeting in New York, focuses on the progress that Global Compact members have made in supporting the delivery of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). It highlights 10 chief executives that have taken particularly bold and disruptive action, including Volvo Cars’ president and chief executive, Samuelsson.
The Global Compact has also recognised Volvo Cars as a LEAD member, a group of the most committed, engaged and ambitious companies within the Global Compact. A founding member of the Global Compact, Volvo Cars is one of only 44 LEAD companies out of a total of 9 500 members – and one of only two car makers.
In the report, entitled ‘Business Solutions to Sustainable Development’, Samuelsson lays out the company’s reasoning behind the electrification strategy announced in July .
“We’re doing this because we think this is the right future for Volvo Cars, and that it will make us stronger. It’s sound business,” Samuelsson says in the UNGC report.
With the announcement, Volvo Cars became the first established car company to fully embrace electrification and place it at the core of its future business. From 2019, every newly-launched Volvo car will feature an electric motor in either a mild hybrid, plug-in hybrid or fully-electric execution, marking the historic end of cars that only have an internal combustion engine.
The electrification announcement was a watershed moment in the industry and Volvo Cars’ example has been followed since by other car makers who have made similar announcements.
As part of its strategy, Volvo Cars will launch five fully-electric vehicles between 2019 and 2021. Three of these cars will be Volvo models and two will be Polestar performance cars. These cars will be supplemented by a range of plug-in hybrid and mild hybrid options on all models, representing one of the broadest electrified car offerings of any car maker.
“Volvo Cars is leading the way and we can see now that the automotive industry is waking up to its responsibilities. We are proud to be a LEAD member of the UN Global Compact and to be acknowledged for our industry-leading commitment to an electric future,” says Stuart Templar, Director Sustainability at Volvo Cars.
In May, Volvo Cars hosted the bi-annual meeting of the UN Global Compact Nordic Network at its headquarters in Gothenburg. It represented one of the largest gatherings of Nordic corporate sustainability experts under the auspices of the United Nations.
