BMW

BMW increased its low-carbon vehicle sales at the rate required by its 1.5°C pathway between 2015 and 2020. In 2015, its low-carbon vehicle sales accounted for 1.2% of total sales, increasing to 8.1% by 2020. The company will need to continue to significantly increase its low-carbon vehicle sales to meet its 1.5°C pathway that expects 35% of sales to be low-carbon by 2025.

BMW has set a target to reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions intensity by 80% by 2030 compared to 2019. The Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) has verified that this target is consistent with a 1.5°C pathway. The company also set science-based targets to reduce its scope 3 emissions intensity by 40% over the same period. In September 2021, BMW announced a more ambitious target of a 50% reduction by 2030. The company should verify that this is aligned with the 1.5°C pathway SBTi when this becomes available.

BMW commits to reduce scope 3 emissions from purchased goods and services, upstream transportation, and distribution services by 22% per vehicle sold by 2030 compared to 2019. This target has been approved by the Science-Based Target initiative. The company uses CDP’s supply chain programme to request emissions information. Participating suppliers reduced their emissions by 22 million tonnes in 2020 from 32 million tonnes in 2019. BMW formed a joint technology consortium with Northvolt and Umicore for the purpose of developing battery cell technology.

The average vehicle-in use emissions produced by vehicles sold by BMW increased from 93.4 grams of CO2 per passenger kilometre (gCO2/p.km) in 2015 to 95 gCO2/p.km in 2020. The increase between 2015 and 2020 is partly due to more stringent emissions testing from 2018 onwards. However, since 2018 vehicle-in use emissions have only seen a marginal decrease from 95.5 gCO2/p.km to 95 gCO2/p.km in 2020. This contrasts with the company’s 1.5°C pathway which requires substantial decreases in scope 3 emissions intensity, with the company expected to reach 43.4 gCO2/p.km by 2025.

Through discounts and charging credits, BMW offers financial incentives to its customers who switch to electric vehicles. These incentives are only available to consumers in markets that already have relatively high sales of low-carbon vehicles, such as Australia and Europe. The company could expand these financial offerings to the global market to encourage more users to switch to low-carbon vehicles.

BMW was one of the few companies assessed which has a policy to review trade associations it is a member of positions on climate change. However, this review process could be strengthened to include the option to terminate membership of trade associations that oppose climate policy. The company retains membership in three trade associations with climate negative positions, despite its public backing of climate-positive regulations.

BMW has set a science-based target to reduce its scope 1 and 2 emissions by 80% by 2030 and a scope 3 use of sold production target to reduce emissions by 50% per vehicle kilometre by 2030. It is aiming for at least 50% of its sales in 2030 to be from electric vehicles.

BMW intends to invest more than € 30 billion in research and development (R&D) of innovative technologies, such as batteries, charging solutions and autonomous driving. It also intends to invest approximately €400 million in enhancing electric mobility production at its main plant in Munich.

BMW is currently expanding its capacity to produce fully electric vehicles. The company did not disclose what proportion of its R&D expenditure was dedicated to low-carbon technologies.

The reported scope 1 and 2 emission intensity decreased from 2015 to 2020 in line with the company pathway. However, scope 3 emissions intensity did not decrease sufficiently over the same period.

BMW’s ambitious targets suggest it is now committed to the low-carbon transition. Its high share of electric vehicles provides evidence of actions taken to achieve these targets. However, its poor fuel efficiency performance shows that there are still further improvements to be made.