Volvo Construction Equipment Expands Landfill-Free Operations to Three Additional Sites

Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) last week announced another major advancement in its sustainability journey, with three additional facilities achieving landfill-free status.

Michael Roth

Dec. 15, 2024

3 min read

675e6c463f5ebb6ae1ddb192 Volvo Technology Center China Dec 24

Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) last week announced another major advancement in its sustainability journey, with three additional facilities achieving landfill-free status. Ongoing efforts mean there is also less than 1 percent landfill waste across all other sites.

This achievement underscores Volvo CE’s unwavering commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainable business practices.

The sites in Belley, France, and Shanghai and Jinan in China are diverting all waste from landfill – through waste reduction, reuse and recycling.

Volvo CE aims for all its sites to achieve landfill-free status by the end of 2025 by addressing the final 0.23 percent* of waste currently sent to landfill.

Environmental care is a core value at Volvo CE, with a focus on reducing impact and conserving planetary resources. Volvo CE’s sites in Shanghai and Belley, which produce crawler excavators and compact excavators respectively, and the Jinan Technology Center join facilities in Changwon in Korea, Pederneiras in Brazil, Shippensburg, Pa., in the United States; and Hallsberg and Braås in Sweden, in reaching this important milestone.

Certification has been awarded following a comprehensive audit by the Volvo Group Environmental Coordination Group. The certificate not only demands that no waste ends up in landfill, but it also requires full management of all material waste streams and emphasizes ongoing improvements in line with the waste hierarchy principles. Achieving zero waste to landfill is a critical step towards the company meeting its goal of net zero value chain greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 as part of its Science Based Targets initiative.

“Across our sites, we are continuing to improve and transform our operations making them more efficient and sustainable and reducing our carbon footprint,” said Niklas Nillroth. “Our target is to ensure all sites achieve landfill-free status by the end of 2025, addressing the final 0.23 percent of waste still sent to landfill. This milestone exemplifies our dedication to lead by example. We share our progress to inspire others to join us and cultivate innovative solutions for a more sustainable future.”

Each site faces its own unique set of challenges in waste management. However, they are united by a shared commitment to minimize waste from the outset and champion the transition to a circular economy. Initiatives include collaborating with suppliers to eliminate unnecessary packaging, reusing and repurposing materials – such as converting plant and food waste into organic farming inputs or using waste for heating – and extracting maximum benefit from products before they become waste.

Data plays a crucial role as an enabler for change, providing insights that help refine and enhance waste management practices. Comprehensive waste separation systems at every site ensure that as much waste as possible is recycled. Across Volvo CE, 85 percent of waste is recycled. Waste is separated, sorted, collected, classified and weighed before being transported to waste contractors for recycling or disposal.

*According to data from January 1 to September 30, 2024.

About the Author

Michael Roth

Editor

Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.