Polestar isn’t only serious about electric cars, it’s serious about producing them in the cleanest and most transparent way. The company has set out an ambitious plan called Polestar 0 — a goal to create a genuinely climate-neutral car by 2030 — and along the way, it is publishing its progress towards this goal.
In 2021, Polestar reduced its greenhouse gas emissions per vehicle sold by 6%. It could do this by increasing focus on production efficiencies and using more renewable energy. This reduction is more impressive as Polestar recorded a year-on-year growth rate of more than 185% and achieved its sales target of 29,000 cars for the year.
Polestar CEO, Thomas Ingenlath, said: “We work with each step we take to support our climate strategy. Goals set 10 or 20 years ahead in time might feel fluffy. That’s where proper reporting comes in – making us accountable for the steps taken every year towards that goal. This is the climate decade. Change and improvement must happen all the time, now, and we can’t afford to wait. I’m proud to say we reduced greenhouse gas-emissions per car sold by 6%.”
At the Glasgow Declaration on Zero Emission Cars and Vans at COP26, several car makers committed to phasing out combustion engine vehicles between 2035 and 2040. The Polestar CEO stated: “Car companies are still talking about selling petrol and diesel cars until 2040. Considering the lifetime of a car, they will still be driving and polluting in the second half of this century. They are delaying one of the most powerful climate solutions available to us. This is not the time for incremental change, but radical change.
“Building and selling electric cars isn’t the end point, it is the beginning. We will need at least as much attention on creating a clean supply chain and closed loops. An electric car is a good start, and a pathway to true climate-neutral mobility, but clean means clean from start to finish. Polestar is not perfect, but we are working at being better.”
The report is available here.
