Volkswagen Named No. 1 Auto Group for Sustainability

According to RobecoSAM, one of the world’s foremost specialists in the field of sustainable investing, Volkswagen was the 2013 auto-industry group leader in its annual Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) review. The review program, which first launched in 1999, looks to a wide range of factors, including a company’s economic, environmental and social practices, and this year analyzed the sustainability efforts of 31 automotive companies.

Volkswagen earned 89 of 100 points in the review, with RobecoSAM lauding the automaker for its “great efforts to improve fleet fuel consumption.” Among them: the recent influx of high-efficiency Audi TDI models as well as the debut of the all-electric VW Golf in Europe. As regards the former, a clean-diesel convoy consisting of an Audi A6, A7 and Q6 recently drove from California to New York in under 48 hours, with all three vehicles significantly exceeding their EPA marks along the way—the A6, for example, averaged above 43.5 mpg over more than 2,850 miles, a mark 50 percent better than its EPA rating in combined travel.

In terms of the latter, the new VW e-Golf had its public premiere in Frankfurt, Germany, earlier this month and is expected to bring its +115-mile all-electric driving range to this country for the 2015 model year. There’s more to come, too.

“This [sustainability] distinction is a real milestone on our path towards becoming the leader in green mobility,” said Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn, chairman of Volkswagen AG. “We will devote all our energy to permanently establishing the Volkswagen Group as the world’s most sustainable automaker.”