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Our environmental philosophy
We care as much as you do about the environment, so we design cars that will have the minimal amount of negative impact – this includes during manufacture, while on the road and at the end of their lives.
Obviously, we know that you’ll also want to enjoy driving your Volkswagen. To enable this balance, our engineers constantly work to produce vehicles that offer great performance, along with better fuel economy and fewer harmful emissions. We also use recycled and recyclable materials where possible and the most environmentally friendly construction techniques. And when it comes to the end of your vehicle's usable life, we have a network of treatment facilities in place, to ensure its effects on the environment are kept to a minimum.
Protecting the environment through technology
By constantly employing the latest technological developments, Volkswagen engineers work hard to continually improve fuel economy and engine CO2 emissions, as well as enhancing the general performance and driving characteristics of our vehicles. Recent success stories include our TDI diesel engines, TSI and FSI petrol engines, BlueMotion models and the Direct Shift Gearbox® (DSG) – all of which enhance driver appeal and help protect the environment.
Product life-cycle
When looking at the environmental impact during the life-cycle of a vehicle, the usage phase has the biggest impact compared with the manufacturing or recovery phase. As such, Volkswagen believes it is particularly important from an environmental viewpoint to optimise the usage phase. We do this by aiming to achieve the lowest possible fuel consumption and engine emissions, with Volkswagen engineers working to achieve ecological benefits for the environment and also economic benefits for customers.
The long life of a vehicle makes a significant impact. If a vehicle can be used longer, the burden on the limited raw material resources of our planet, and also on the owner’s wallet, will be reduced. At the same time, we have been working on the area of servicing, with many Volkswagen models now incorporating extended servicing intervals of up to 50,000km.
Manufacturing and recycling
When it comes to the manufacturing and recycling of our vehicles, careful selection of recycled and recyclable materials, optimised construction techniques and the labelling of plastic parts with their material type, all mean our vehicles can be recycled as efficiently as possible.
At Volkswagen, environmental protection is an integral part of the whole process chain from product planning and product development to the recovery of end-of-life vehicles. Against this background, when a new Volkswagen is developed, numerous activities not only guarantee the long life of the vehicle, but also improve subsequent recovery. All engineers involved in the development process use internal guidelines and extensive information as the basis for creating recyclable products. In addition to avoiding the use of hazardous substances, we are also increasingly using recycled materials. And when we’ve done all that we check the environmentally friendly properties of our new vehicles in a recycling analysis. The details are given to recycling treatment facilities to ensure environmentally friendly recycling at the end of a vehicle’s life.
End of life treatment facilities
We are committed to protecting the environment through all stages of vehicle ownership. To demonstrate this commitment, we have compiled a list of approved treatment facilities across Ireland, who will be able to break and recycle your vehicle when it comes to the end of its life.