Audi using sustainable, ASI-certified aluminium for the e-tron’s battery housing

The aluminium producer Hydro is now supplying sustainable aluminium for the battery housing of the first fully electric model of the company, the Audi e-tron.

The material is processed and manufactured along the entire process chain in an environmentally friendly manner and under socially acceptable working conditions.

This has been confirmed by the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) with a “chain of custody” certificate. The ASI already awarded Audi a certificate for the sustainable assembly of these aluminium components in October 2018. This means that the aluminium sheets processed in the battery housing of the Audi e-tron are now demonstrably produced in a responsible manner along the entire value chain, from the extraction of the bauxite raw material to the end product.

The two partners pursue sustainability as an important goal in their corporate strategy and together want to reduce CO₂ emissions from the use of aluminium. By 2025, Audi aims to reduce the CO₂ footprint of its products throughout their lifecycle by about 30% compared with 2015. There is great potential in the use of sustainable and responsibly extracted resources.

Certification by the ASI is the result of various workshops in which Audi and Hydro exchanged their expertise on effective measures for CO₂ reduction. “We want to offer our customers completely CO₂‑neutral mobility by 2050 at the latest. To do that, we need a sustainable supply chain,” said Dr. Bernd Martens, Audi Board of Management Member for Procurement and IT. “We therefore seek dialogue with our partners and, together with them, want to significantly reduce CO₂ emissions along the entire value chain.” In late 2018, Audi started a CO₂ programme in procurement and since then has already carried out more than 20 CO₂ workshops with aluminium suppliers.

Hydro is one of the first aluminium producers to offer sustainable sheet aluminum that is certified by the ASI. “We are very proud to supply ASI-certified metal, especially for the Audi e-tron, one of Audi's flagships. We are constantly working on reducing our impact and that of our customers on the environment,” said Einar Glomnes, Executive Vice President at Hydro. “This is an important milestone in our strategy of helping our customers to document the fact that they offer aluminium products that are procured and produced responsibly along the entire value chain.”

ASI encompasses environmentally, socially and economically ethical criteria that apply along the entire value chain, from the extraction of the raw material bauxite to the processing, production and recycling of aluminium. For example, it is assessed whether a company uses the material in a resource-conserving manner, prepares holistic lifecycle analyses and considers the subsequent repair and recyclability of its products in the design phase.