Seat's steps to cut production footprint yield success

Seat has reduced its five main production-related environmental emitters by 43% since 2010.

The carmaker has successfully reduced its energy (26%) and water (32%) consumption, waste generation (58%), volatile organic compounds (23%) and CO2 (65%) in the past decade.

In 2019, the company invested $42.53 million in environmental initiatives focused on producing less waste and more efficiently treating or recycling any waste generated. As a result, SEAT reduced waste by 38.5% in a single year, achieving a 58% reduction since 2010, and waste destined for disposal has gone down by two kilograms per vehicle produced.

22 tonnes of plastic per year has been eliminated from the production cycle by minimising packaging destined for disposal, improving waste separation and treatment, as well as replacing employee plastic bottles with re-usable ones.

2,400 tonnes of CO₂ emissions are no longer emitted each year due to the plant now recovering energy from the paint drying oven chimneys. This results in annual savings of 11.7GWh in natural gas consumption, the equivalent of the needs of 2,400 homes in an entire year.

Water is now recycled and reused in the paint shop used to spray paint the vehicles. Rather than wasted, it is now separated, cleaned and returned to the process in a closed loop, saving a significant volume of fresh water consumption every year.