Fiat and environmental sustainability

Now in the construction of Fiat’s plant, water, waste and air treatment stations were installed. In the 90’s, the social responsibility actions were intensified.
In 1989, Fiat’s Ecology and Energy department was created.
In 1991, Fiat was the first Brazilian company to eliminate the substance, ascarel, in its productive process – with an investment of USD 9 million to incinerate 442 tons of substance, in England.
In 1992, the water treatment stations were reformed and expanded.
In 1994, selective collection and recycling of materials, in the Ecological Island were implanted.
In 1997, Fiat was the first automotive company installed in Brazil to receive the certificate of its Environmental Management system by the ISO 14001 Norm.

WCM – World Class Manufacturing
Today, Fiat Automóveis adopts the production model called “World Class Manufacturing”, whose guidelines are applied to all plants of the Fiat Group in the world and that is inspired on the lean production system practices in main Japanese companies. The objective is to obtain zero waste, with zero rework and no occurrence of accidents. Environmental preoccupation is at the core of this philosophy, with concepts applied from selective collection up to the definition of industrial processes, for example, with the elimination of wastes in the chemical processes like that of painting. Another example is in industrial architecture: the new designed shed in Fiat’s current expansion already adopt ecological bioclimatic concepts, with the usage of natural lighting and natural ventilation and intelligent systems of sanitary discharges.

Recycling
The Ecological Island is installed in an area of 30 thousand square meters, inside the plant, to where all solid wastes generated in the productive process are destined. There are 100 dedicated employees and a volume of 400 tons per day of processed material.

In 1996, each automobile produced used to generate 400 kg of wastes. Today, this volume was reduced to 210 kg. On the other hand, the percentage of recycled waste went up from 70% to 93%. All solid waste generated in the plant has an environmentally correct destination.

An example is the Styrofoam box that Fiat receives as packaging of parts and components. There are 4 tons per day. In 1995, a pioneering technology was developed in the world for the picking and condensation of Styrofoam, transforming it into polystyrene, used as raw material for the manufacture of plastic pieces like ball pens, shoe soles, domestic utensils, etc. 100% of the Styrofoam received by Fiat is recycled through this process.

In the last 10 years, the Ecological Island made feasible the recycling of 16,000 tons of paper and cardboard (which is equivalent to 320 thousand trees), 16 thousand tons of plastic and 1,625 tons of Styrofoam (which corresponds to 75 tons of petroleum).

Water
Water consumption in the productive process in 1996 used to be 3 million cubic meters a year. In 2006, it was reduced to half – 1.5 million. On the other hand, the treated and recycled quantity of this water went up from 60% to 92% - and the goal is to reach 95%.
Water consumption per vehicle produced was reduced from 8 cubic meters to 3.2 cubic meters, between 1996 and 2006.

Fiat also controls totally the atmospheric emissions of toxic gases, with post-combustors of paint drying ovens that used up an investment of USD 11.5 million.

Less polluting automobiles
Now in the final product, Fiat records indexes way beyond what the law sets forth in what refers to vehicle emissions in gasoline driven vehicles, and it has a great contribution to the environment with 100% production of vehicles destined to the internal market with the flex technology, with direct use of alcohol fuel. It is also a pioneer in the tetra-fuel vehicle, which can be operated by pure gasoline, gasoline with alcohol, pure alcohol or vehicular natural gas (VNG). Currently Fiat develops in partnership with Itaipu Binacional, the Electric Palio project, with zero atmospheric emission, with the objective of making feasible the electric automobile on a productive scale.

Another program developed by Fiat (in Italy) is the F.A.Re (Fiat Automotive Recycling), which makes feasible the tracking of metallic and plastic parts for intelligent recycling, that is, it allows the use of the same material in successive applications. As example, the plastic used in the bumper can be recycled for use in pipelines and later in the vehicle’s air boxes and, even, in rugs and internal coverings until its incineration in a power generation process.

Source: Windson Paz, director of Quality of Fiat Latin America and responsible for the company’s Sustainable Development Committee.