Progress in Reducing Water Use

We began our Global Water Management Initiative in 2000, setting a target of 3 percent year-over-year reductions. In 2011, we announced a goal of reducing the amount of water used to make each vehicle by 30 percent globally from 2009 to 2015.

We have achieved this goal, two years ahead of schedule. We will be updating our global manufacturing water strategy in 2014 and setting a new long-term target. Our target for 2014 is a reduction of 2 percent per vehicle produced from 2013.

Between 2012 and 2013, we reduced the average amount of water used to make each vehicle by 5 percent. Between 2000 and 2013, we reduced our total global water use by 61 percent, or more than 10 billion gallons (see graphic below), by cutting the water we use in everything from cooling towers to washing parts to paint operations. (That’s equivalent to the water used for 1 billion five-minute showers, based on figures from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or enough to fill more than 15,000 Olympic-sized pools.) We decreased the total amount of water used around our global facilities from 64 million cubic meters per year to 25 million cubic meters.

We report on our progress in this annual Sustainability Report and through our participation in the CDP Water Disclosure, which we joined in 2010 – the first automaker to do so. We have also joined the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Plants Water Program as a pilot participant.

In 2013, we began tracking process water discharge at our manufacturing plants globally. Process water discharge is defined as the water used in manufacturing (including facility air conditioning) and released to the environment or discharged off-site. (It does not include sanitary sewage or storm water.) Tracking this metric will provide greater transparency around water usage within our facilities.