Climate Protection – Our Responsibility for the Environment

One of our key responsibilities is climate protection, and we make an essential contribution to this with our technologies and products.

Reduction of CO₂ – Our Focus

We invest in research and technologies for the reduction of CO₂ emissions. We also work on products and systems that reduce the emissions of other pollutant gases, for instance from air conditioning systems. By making ever greater use of renewable raw materials such as natural rubber and vegetable oils, we contribute to the conservation of natural resources. We have set ourselves some highly ambitious goals regarding the reduction of CO₂ emissions: By the year 2012, we want to decrease CO₂ emissions in our production processes by a total of 20%. In the same period of time, our products for the automotive industry shall reduce the CO₂ emissions from cars by about 15% and from trucks by roughly 5%. Hybrid drives for cars are to lower the CO₂ emissions by another 10% to 25%, depending on the hybrid type and application conditions.

Sustainable Mobility – Continental in the Car

We reduce the energy consumption of vehicles with our products and technologies – a significant contribution to the sustainability of individual mobility. By making our products lighter weight, the energy required to power a vehicle is decreased. In past years, we have managed, for instance, to reduce the weight of our brake components substantially while at the same time enhancing braking performance. By continually improving our products, we reduce the energy requirements of a vehicle. We have thus lowered the average rolling resistance of our passenger tires by approximately 10% since 2002 – without any negative impact on the tire's safety features. Our powertrain components – for instance oil-resistant timing belts for engine management – will help cut CO₂ emissions by 1% to 2% in the future.

Achievement of the EU Goals – Our Contribution

The goal of the European Commission is to reduce the average CO₂ emissions of cars sold in the EU-27 to 120 g/km by 2012, compared with 163 g/km in 2006. This shall be achieved by improving vehicle technology as well as other measures – such as making greater use of biofuels.

Here, we are making a substantial contribution:

In addition, telematics systems and optimized hose lines help reduce climate-relevant emissions even further.

Emissions in the “Product Life”

Product life cycle assessment shows that throughout the various product life phases – from the product development and raw materials procurement, production and utilization, through to the recycling – the utilization phase represents the largest share of the CO₂ emissions. In comparison, the CO₂ output during the manufacturing process is low.

CO₂ emitted during production is compensated already after the products have run a relatively short amount of time. For instance, the emissions are offset after approximately 20,000 km for hybrid drives, after about 10,000 km for low-resistance passenger tires and already after some 500 km for engine timing belts.