Jaguar Land Rover is very proud to announce that it has been honoured by Business in the Community for its commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility with a Gold award in the Corporate Responsibility (CR) Index. Not only that, but it has also been recognised for its environmental performance with a coveted Big Tick award for Environmental Leadership.

The CR Index is the UK’s leading benchmark of Corporate Responsibility. It provides a framework to help companies integrate and improve CR throughout their operations and is entirely voluntary. Jaguar Land Rover’s continuing commitment to CR is clear to see with an impressive increase in the companies score by 10 percentage points. Meaning the company has leapt from Silver to Gold in just one year!

Mike Wright, Executive Director, Jaguar Land Rover said: “Corporate Social Responsibility has long been a core value for Jaguar Land Rover and permeates every aspect of our business from the environmental impact of our products and operations to engagement with our employees, community groups and nationwide educational establishments.”

One of the key measures within Jaguar Land Rover’s CR strategy is environmental performance and so it is great news that the Environmental Innovation programme has been awarded a Big Tick for Environmental Leadership. The award is given in recognition of Jaguar Land Rover’s commitment to sustainable products and manufacturing processes, CO2 reductions and improved fuel efficiency through its comprehensive employee engagement initiative (Ei).

Established three years ago, Ei is a commitment to ambitious long term business targets for products and processes with an impressive target of 25 per cent reductions in operational CO2, and waste to landfill by 2012, a 10 per cent reduction in water consumption by 2012, and 25 per cent reduction in tailpipe emissions by 2015, compared to 2007 levels.

An extensive campaign to raise awareness of the sustainability programmes has been led by senior leaders throughout the business. And individuals and teams have been encouraged to share best practices by entering internal Environmental Innovation awards. All this has allowed 10,000 employees to gain a wider understanding of the importance of sustainable development to the business and helped them support environmental goals.

Stephen Howard, Chief Executive, Business in the Community said: “I congratulate Jaguar Land Rover on achieving their Big Tick. It is a challenging time for business, but this is a sign that companies are not losing their focus and are transforming their businesses to make a positive impact on people and society and are prepared to lead by example. “

Commenting on the award Fran Leedham, Head of Sustainability, said: “We are delighted to receive this Big Tick Award.  We take our sustainability responsibilities very seriously and our Ei programme has enabled us to engage widely across the business, and it is satisfying to see our commitment rewarded.”

In honour of Climate Week, we thought it would be a good time to talk about ‘Our plan for sustainability’. At Land Rover sustainable manufacturing is taken pretty seriously. Not only is it fundamental to preserving the strong reputation of the brand, but it’s also important in order to secure a license to operate, to deliver profitable growth and to retain the trust of stakeholders. Simply put, it’s integral to how Land Rover work across the whole business.

Land Rover is committed to doing absolutely everything it can to ensure that operations are as sustainable as possible, whilst maintaining the high quality of the cars that Landy lovers everywhere have come to expect. So not only is Land Rover investing £800 million in automotive environmental technologies to help reduce the impact of tailpipe emissions when the vehicles are used, but it is also committing £9 million to ensuring that operations are energy efficient too.

The key target is to cut emissions by 25% by 2012. To do this Land Rover ensures that energy use is closely monitored at all sites throughout the building management system, which records how much energy is being used in every work area, for lighting, heating and air conditioning every half hour. This enables Land Rover to uncover any incidents of unusually high energy, pin pointing in some cases to a specific lighting block!

And that’s not all. Since 2009, Land Rover has invested in a huge range of operational initiatives, both big and small, to keep energy use and emissions down. Here are just a few examples:

• Installing variable speed drives on air compressors to match load with demand at paint and body shops, saving 310 tonnes of CO2 in 2009.
• Investing in more efficient equipment such as pumps, motors and compressors which will save around 6,000 tonnes of CO2 a year.
• Introducing ambient light detectors, motion detectors and zoned lighting so lights only come on when needed.
• Responding to weather changes so heating and air conditioning are only used when needed.
• Minimising production run periods and targeting out of hours energy consumption when the site is idle.

And at Land Rover headquarters and The Heritage Motor Centre in Gaydon a trial programme is even turning waste food from the catering facilities into a renewable source of energy. An incredible 43 tonnes were saved from landfill in the first 7 months, saving an estimated 3.7 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Of course, this is just a small taste of the many, many schemes and initiatives underway. If you’d like to find out more you can read the whole plan for sustainability here.

Land Rover are committed to investing in a cleaner, more sustainable future. It’s all about emitting less CO2, using few natural resources and creating less waste.

Our approach to a sustainable business for a lower carbon world by investing in four key areas:

Land Rover Our Planet is proud to introduce its new website as they seek to re-affirm their commitment to keeping the public informed about the many and varied environmental projects Land Rover are undertaking across the globe.

Land Rover are passionate about the validity and integrity of both the projects and the people involved, and are determined that their external communications accurately reflect the planning, effort involved and results of these projects as well as reiterating the core values behind the purpose of these large scale undertakings.

With a fresh new look, easy navigation, enhanced picture quality and updated & informative content, you can see first hand what Land Rover are doing around the world as well as viewing the extraordinary progress being made in crucial areas including: e_Terrain Technologies, Sustainable Manufacturing, CO2 Off Setting and Humanitarian & Conservation Partnerships.

You can browse by continent, select individual countries, choose a category of project or simply click on whatever catches your eye and you’ll be instantly transported to a page filled with updated content and visuals that details what is happening and why as well as current progress reports. A related links section allows you to dig a little deeper if the subject material appeals to you.

From engaging and interesting feature articles to updates from global projects, there is plenty to keep the reader hooked. The tone ranges from fresh to somber to exhilarating depending on the subject matter but always conveys the core reasons for the continued relevance of the particular project and the role it plays in the bigger picture that is Land Rover’s hugely ambitious environmental initiatives.

The all-new story wall section of the site contains a unique and ever growing list of features depicting original innovations in sustainability and conservations from Western Europe to Oceania. There is something for everyone here and this section of the site is expected to expand and develop in line with Land Rover’s environmental exploits across the planet in the coming years.

Bigger, stronger and better equipped to supply new and relevant content, this new site allows you to learn while engaging with serious content. It’s a big world out there and there is a lot happening just now and much more is planned. Log on, tune in and keep up with the pace!