Aluminum is an important material in an automobile but is very energy intensive in production. Audi therefore places great value on the sustainability values and material stewardship of the materials it uses. “Audi stands for sustainability along the entire supply chain,” stated Bernd Martens, Member of the Board of Management for Procurement and IT. “The Aluminium Stewardship Initiative has created transparency with its new certification program.” Martens stated that the battery, as a major component of the new, all-electric Audi e-tron, was therefore just the beginning, and that Audi would gradually have its own development, procurement and production processes audited for as many aluminum components as possible at the company’s plants worldwide. He stated that in addition, Audi intended to ensure sustainability in the long-term by means of ASI-certified partners and their suppliers along their respective upstream supply chains.
Audi has been involved in the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative since early 2013. In recent years, the initiative has developed und launched its global sustainability standards. They include environmental, social and governance criteria which apply to all stages of the process chain from the extraction of the raw material, bauxite, to processing and production and to recycling. The material stewardship criteria requires, for example, that a company deals with the material in a resource-conserving way, prepares holistic lifecycle analyses and takes into consideration suitability for later repair and recycling when designing its products.
