GM has announced plans to use 100 percent renewable energy?from wind, sun, and landfill gas, among other potential sources?by 2050.
Yes, that?s more than 30 years away and a lot can change in that time (maybe we’ll have flying cars!), but the steps to get there aren?t just image-boosting gloss for shareholders, investors, and customers who are thinking about the company behind products such as the Chevrolet Volt and the new Chevy Bolt EV. It?s also not something that?s going to bankrupt the company; with an eye to the future and the purse strings, it?s increasingly good business.
According to GM?s 2015 Sustainability Report (the most recent such report), the company says that its manufacturing and non-manufacturing facilities use 2.09 megawatt-hours of energy and produce 0.78 metric tons of carbon dioxide per vehicle. (Ford, for instance, has that latter figure beaten for 2015, at 0.72 metric tons.) GM says that it required 9 terawatt-hours of energy for its global operations in 2015. As an intermediate step, GM aims to get 125 megawatts of its energy from renewable sources by 2020?including a massive rooftop-and-carport solar array at its facility in Shanghai, China, totaling 20 megawatts?and it may even exceed its target this year when two wind projects come online.
Ian Kelly, the manager of the Business Renewables Center, an effort of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) that helps companies procure renewable, off-site energy, assesses that while those kinds of...