Polestar’s fourth Annual Sustainability report announces significant GHG reductions, updates on the Polestar 0 project and a continued quest for increased transparency and more sustainable materials.
Since the company started measuring in 2020, Polestar has reduced its carbon footprint per sold car with a quarter (24.7 percent). The most significant contributing factors to this achievement include an increased use of low-carbon aluminium in all models, improvements in battery manufacturing, 100 percent renewable electricity in the manufacture of all models and more efficient logistics combined with increased use of biofuels on certain ocean routes.
Michael Lohscheller, Polestar CEO, says: “Polestar has shown that it is possible to decouple growth from climate impact. In simple terms, we aim to continue to cut emissions as we accelerate sales. Even though much in the world seems to be going in the wrong direction, we are doubling down on our commitments.”
The Polestar 0 project was launched in 2021, as a goal to create a climate neutral car, aimed at galvanising a sense of urgency and accelerating collaborative research, supporting Polestar’s goal of becoming climate neutral by 2040. Today, the project partners and Polestar announce that across the companies’ combined initiatives, important low carbon solutions have been identified, showing the potential to produce a Polestar 2 with a 10 tonnes lower carbon footprint than when the project started.
The largest contributions are within aluminium and steel manufacturing, key materials for decarbonisation as they represent around 45 percent of the total cradle-to gate carbon footprint of Polestar 2.
Moving into its next stage, the structure of the Polestar 0 project will shift, with areas that require further research serving as input to the Mission 0 House, a Polestar-initiated but collaboratively driven and funded research centre.
Located in Gothenburg, the research hub hosts scientists from academia and engineers from industry, who work side by side, towards elimination of GHG emissions in materials, products and processes. As a key principle, the ambition is to consider commercialisation of future potential solutions developed by the Mission 0 House.
Circularity, Inclusion and Transparency remain key areas. Polestar joined the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) and continued the expansion of onsite audits in high-risk regions. Traceability of risk materials was expanded to include the mapping of manganese, among others. Polestar continues its efforts to increase both data availability and share of recycled content from car programs to model year upgrades and Polestar 4 now contains 10 percent recycled material.
Polestar is a Swedish electric performance car brand. Headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, its cars are available in 27 markets globally across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.
Polestar has three models in its line-up: Polestar 2, Polestar 3, and Polestar 4. Planned models include the Polestar 5 four-door GT (to be introduced in 2025), the Polestar 6 roadster and the Polestar 7 compact SUV. With its vehicles currently manufactured on two continents, North America and Asia, Polestar plans to diversify its manufacturing footprint further, with production of Polestar 7 planned in Europe.
