Volvo Trucks North America’s New River Valley Plant, located in Dublin, Va., received the Volvo Environmental Award for 2006 in recognition of its achievements in saving energy and reducing the environmental impact of the plant’s operations.
Since 2003, the plant has reduced water consumption by half through recycling and reuse of water used for cab leak testing and in painting. In addition, a recycling program and increased sorting of refuse have cut landfill waste in half since 2000. The plant now recycles more than 75 percent of the waste that it generates.
The amount of energy consumed by the plant for each truck produced has dropped by more than 60 percent since 2001, making it one of the leading vehicle production plants in the EPA’s Climate Leaders program. This energy conservation equates to emissions reduction of 20,056 tons of carbon dioxide, 50 tons of nitrogen oxides and 138 tons of sulfur dioxide. The plant also has eliminated the use of heavy metals, such as lead and chromium, and hazardous solvents from its paint program and has cut its use of volatile organic compounds by 52.2 percent.
The Volvo Environmental Award, which is an annual competition among Volvo’s businesses and facilities around the world, was presented to plant officials by Volvo CEO Leif Johansson at the company’s internal environmental conference in Gothenburg, Sweden. Individual plant employees honored for their work included Stephen Pierett, Michael Kijak, Frank Stanley, Channon Maycook, Danny Arnold and Thomas Newcomb.
The New River Valley plant, which manufactures all Volvo trucks sold in North America, also was awarded the Commonwealth of Virginia’s 2005 Governor’s Environmental Excellence Award for Manufacturers – Gold Level this past September.
