Volkswagen is committed to the Paris climate goals and wants to be CO2-neutral by 2050. The IAA 2021 in Munich offered the perfect opportunity to showcase current and future electric cars of the Volkswagen brand in combination with talks on the main stage about the design process or the sustainable supply chain.

Reducing the CO2 footprint or recycling valuable raw materials are common examples of measures to help with decarbonization. But there’s more to sustainability than CO2-neutrality. Social aspects like human rights, working conditions, and transparency play an important role, especially in the supply chain.

In our talk about the supply chain, I had the pleasure of speaking with the founding Executive Director of the UN Global Compact, the world’s largest voluntary corporate sustainability initiative with more than 9.000 companies in over 160 countries, and Spokesperson for Volkswagen Sustainability Council Georg Kell, and Chief Purchasing Officer of the Volkswagen Group Murat Aksel.

And I also had the privilege of talking to Head of Volkswagen Design Josef Kaban, who sees his role as much more than just being responsible for stylish cars. He wants to use the vehicle design to change people’s way of thinking, and in this way help, Volkswagen become a key player in shaping the transformation to sustainable mobility.

It was great to be part of a live event again, with a real audience in front of the stage, and talk about the topics that matter with people helping the industry with the transition to greener and cleaner mobility.