Daniela Bohlinger, responsible for sustainable design at the BMW Group
Daniela, what were you hoping to get out of this exchange with the TEDxMünchen participants today?
I wanted to share our perspective as a major international company. A lot of issues that might seem easy to solve are not so trivial when it comes to product development. But that’s no excuse for not trying to find the best solutions – solutions that enable both genuine sustainability and a high-quality product. Not to mention fantastic, innovative design, which I believe is exactly what our products stand for. Let me give you an example: Our experience has shown that 80 percent of the genuine sustainability in technically complex products like cars begins with the design. A stroke of the pen, sketching out interior or exterior shapes, already defines how simple or complicated it will be to make that part in standard production. The next step is to find the right materials and build the tools needed. For instance, if plastic parts have a very small radius it may mean we can’t use recycled materials, because they have a different flow rate. This is naturally very technical, but you can still discuss these things with people who aren’t specialists in this area. I wanted to talk about the conflicts between all aspects of sustainability.
You talk about “genuine sustainability”. What does that mean?
There are three perspectives to sustainability: economic, environmental and social. The BMW Group believes just focusing on one or two aspects is not enough. With BMW i, more than 10 years ago, we were already thinking about how to minimise the car’s footprint throughout its entire lifecycle – not just during the use phase. This also includes using batteries beyond the end of a vehicle's life in so-called second-life applications, for example. Because at the end of the vehicle’s life, a BMW i3 battery normally still has enough capacity to be used as a buffer for storing surplus renewable energy in a battery storage farm. Or, to give you an example that is more tangible for customers: The interior trim in the BMW i is made of a mixed fabric containing kenaf, a fast-growing natural fibre. This allowed us to reduce weight by about a third and improve environmental impact, because it uses much less oil-based plastic. That, of course, raises the next challenge: We source plant raw materials from countries like Bangladesh that don’t have such high labour standards as Germany. For this reason, we are working with local producers to secure growers a decent living. And, not least, we also have to be able to pay for all of this – otherwise, even the best approach isn’t worth much. Meeting lots of different requirements at the same time – that’s what I mean by “genuine sustainability”.