Isra-Mart srl:Jaguar Land Rover pledges to tackle carbon tyre-print

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By its own admission, Jaguar Land Rover is a long way from being regarded as a manufacturer of green cars, but that has not stopped the luxury vehicle firm from stepping up its commitment to deliver "substantial" reductions in the full life cycle emissions of its iconic models.

Speaking to BusinessGreen, Mark Stanton, group chief engineer at Jaguar Land Rover, revealed the company is currently engaged in an extensive exercise to measure the full life cycle environmental impact of all of its models.

The project, which is due to be completed by 2012, measures the carbon emissions and other environmental impacts associated with every aspect of vehicles' life from raw materials and manufacture through to use and disposal.

The results are then audited by the independent Vehicle Certification Agency to ensure they are accurate, and used by the company's engineers and designers to identify areas where carbon and energy savings can be made.

"There is an emphasis across the industry on tackling tailpipe emissions, which is the right thing to do, but at the end of the day the tailpipe is not the only contribution to global emissions," Stanton explained. "Manufacturing and disposal are significant and they tend to go up as tailpipe emissions go down, particularly with new technology like electric cars."

He added that having information on vehicles' full life cycle emissions has already allowed the company to identify effective means of curbing emissions and saving money.

For example, engineers realised that, for many chassis, lightweight aluminium represents a more sustainable option than carbon fibre, which is energy-intensive to manufacture and difficult to recycle.

Stanton also explained how the exercise had encouraged the company to move away from traditional techniques for assessing the aerodynamics of a design – using full-size clay models in energy-intensive wind tunnels – in favour of computer-modeling systems that deliver substantial emission reductions.

"For the Jaguar XJ, 20 per cent of the total emissions come from manufacturing and that proportion is going to increase as tailpipe emissions fall," he said. "Having that information helps us ensure we are making the right decisions."

The company also plans to use the life cycle data it has obtained to set "substantial" emission reduction targets designed to ensure each new model is significantly cleaner than its predecessor.

Stanton acknowledged that the company's vehicles remain at the high end of any emissions league tables, but insisted the company was making significant progress reducing emissions and investing heavily in delivering deeper cuts.

"Last year, we launched a Land Rover that does 30 miles to the gallon – people look at it and think that because it is a Land Rover, it is worse than many smaller cars, but in fact it is a lot more efficient," he said.