Celebrating the Sustainable Efforts of Kia Motors for a Greener Future on Earth Day

Apr 22, 2022

Happy Earth Day from All of us at Classic Auto Group!

Kia’s committed to building a brighter, greener, more sustainable future for the company and it’s customers. The company has created a responsive framework to climate change by focusing on achieving carbon neutrality, reducing environmental impact across the entire value chain from supply to production to use and distribution/disposal. Kia is on the way to success by employing an all encompassing vision for sustainable mobility and remains focused on realizing their goals for carbon neutrality through their “3S Activities”: Sustainable mobility, sustainable energy, sustainable planet.

LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW KIA IS MAKING STRIDES FOR A GREENER FUTURE

Sustainable Mobility

The company aims to pave the way for an all-electric future, and has set their sights on introducing 11 different Electric Vehicles to the consumer market by 2026. They expect the European market to be fully electric by 2035, and fully electric on a global scale by 2045. Kia also aims to recycle and upcycle waste into materials for interior fabric, seats, carpeting and more. They’re reducing their use of animal leathers to reduce reliance on and eventually phase out leather to reduce animal skin processing, creating a much smaller carbon footprint during manufacturing.

Sustainable Energy

Kia has big plans to make sure that they achieve RE 100 by 2040. This means that the end goal will ultimately show that all electric power used at manufacturing sites will be from 100% renewable sources! Their first stepping stone is 100% powered by renewable energy by 2030 at overseas manufacturing facilities, and domestic production sites in Korea by 2040. They’re already well on the way by beginning to install solar energy systems at plants in Korea, China, the US, and India. Kia expects all vehicles used on site to also be EV class by 2030. As of 2022, all tier-1 partners have received specific guidelines and support programs established to help them reduce greenhouse gas emissions and obtain carbon neutrality. It is expected that by 2030, all supply chain partners of steel will be supplying the company with “green steel” for manufacturing, which produces ⅓ less carbon emission compared to current standards.

Sustainable Planet

Kia is committed to taking proactive measures to increase positive contributions to environmental efforts by way of “virtuous recycling loop.” New programs have been implemented to reuse EV batteries, partner with local energy companies to recover and transform end-of-life batteries into new energy storage systems. Kia also aims to include 20% or more of plastic parts used in Kia vehicles to be recycled plastics by 2030. And then there is the wonderful Blue Carbon program, with efforts to protect and restore tidal mudflats in Korea absorb 260,000 tons of harmful emission annually, which equates to the emissions produced by up to 110,000 Internal Combustion Engine vehicles. Preserving the tidal flats will be a major boon in environmental conservation efforts. Additional external partnerships will see to it that the company recycles marine plastic waste collected through projects such as The Ocean Cleanup non-profit foundation.

Learn more about Kia’s efforts for ECO-Friendly Car Lifecycle Management.

Kia’s EV6 is the first Korean car in history to achieve a “Product Carbon Footprint.”