Volvo Trucks Calculates Cradle to Grave Impacts
by Jenna Watson, Barcelona on 02.22.07
It’s online. Volvo Trucks has it. You can go to their website and calculate the life cycle impacts of a Volvo truck. In fact you can even compare two vehicles to see which performs better in terms of materials and production, fuel and exhaust, maintenance and end of life. The results are categorized into resources, air, water and waste. Here’s what they have to say: In order for our customers, and others, to see how two of our best-selling trucks (the Volvo FH and Volvo FM) affect the environment, we produced an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD). The EPD is an on-line application containing information about materials, energy consumption, emissions and so on, which enables you to calculate the environmental impact of a single transport operation or the complete life cycle of a truck.
The site is aimed at companies that use Volvo trucks for transportation purposes, but the idea here is great. One drawback is obviously the limitation to Volvo truck types, however the idea and intent is great. Of course they can’t really provide data on other truck types, so that drawback is excusable. If only other vehicle manufacturers would take this idea one step further and provide an online tool for regular greenie citizens to calculate the life cycle impacts of their vehicles. You could check and compare the impacts of the vehicles you want to buy! Read about Volvo’s hybrid system for trucks and busses here and their plans for CO2 free plants in Sweden here::Volvo Trucks
Every company should be doing this for every product and providing this info with all their products. This should be standard stuff, and I hope it becomes so soon. How can people be responsible about their purchasing choices if they don't have the necessary information? Companies should be transparent about their business and their products.