JLR receives Sustainable Development Queen’s Award

This is the 14th Queen’s Award that Jaguar and Land Rover have received since 1967 – the second year of the scheme, and follows a 2014 award for International Trade, in recognition of JLR’s impressive overseas sales growth.

The company’s CEO, Dr Ralf Speth said: “Jaguar Land Rover is honoured to receive this 2015 Queen’s Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development, we are focused on growing a long-term, sustainable business, as leaders in environmental innovation and making a positive impact on society.”

The award has been announced during Responsible Business Week, which is appropriate timing as Jaguar Land Rover was named Responsible Business of the Year 2013/14 by Business in the Community (BiTC).

‘Whole lifecycle’ approach

The company’s 8,000 designers and engineers take a ‘whole lifecycle’ approach to vehicle development, aiming to reduce impact on the environment right through from raw materials to eventual vehicle disposal.  These measures have already helped significantly reduce Co2 emissions, with the company’s EU fleet average on track to be 25% lower in 2015 than 2007.

JLR  has become something of a world leader in the design and manufacture of aluminium-intensive vehicles, pioneering the use of closed-loop processes to drive recycled content and reduce environmental impacts across the lifecycle.  Benefits include weight saving; higher fuel efficiency; lower emissions; improved crash safety, and even better vehicle dynamics.

The latest generation Range Rover and Range Rover Sport, for example, are each up to 420kg lighter than equivalent predecessors.

Now, a new family of highly efficient, ultra-low emission, aluminium four-cylinder diesel and petrol engines, named Ingenium, has been developed to power new and future Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles.

The engines have recently entered production at the company’s brand new £500m Engine Manufacturing Centre near Wolverhampton, which was opened in October 2014 by HM The Queen.

Aluminium-intensive and advanced technologies

The all-new Jaguar XE mid-sized sports saloon demonstrates JLR’s uses of advanced technologies to create a vehicle that leads its sector.  The XE can reportedly achieve fuel economy figures of 75 mpg and Co2 emissions down to 99g/km.

Hybrid technology is another area that has seen significant investment by the business in recent years. The Range Rover Hybrid and the Range Rover Sport Hybrid are now both available, using an advanced hybrid system and without compromise to their renowned all-terrain capabilities.

JLR has also significantly reduced its operational energy, waste and water usage at its UK manufacturing plants.  The new Engine Manufacturing Centre has been designed and built with strong emphasis on sustainability, including the UK’s largest rooftop solar panel installation, which will generate up to 30% of the site’s energy.

Doubling the workforce and increasing skills

JLR’s approach also contributes to social, economic and leadership dimensions of sustainable development.  The company is helping address the UK skills gap, with a training and skills programme aimed at young people at school (STEM initiatives), recruitment of over 2,000 apprentices and graduate engineers in the past five years, and investment in on-going training to develop engineering skills among its workforce.

The company also has a sector-leading global Corporate Social Responsibility programme to deliver opportunities for 12m people worldwide by 2020.  In the first year of the activation (2013/14), 1.5m people benefitted from education and clean water opportunities through NGOs such as the Red Cross and Climate Care.

As well as the 14 Queen’s Awards, Jaguar Land Rover is proud to be the only automotive company to hold all three Royal Warrants, as an official supplier of goods and services to the households of HM The Queen, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh and HRH The Prince of Wales.