South Korea – Collectively, the area added last year was 136,289 sq.m, an increase of 3.9% which brings the total to 3,507,276 sq.m. The green space is located at Sohari, Hwasung and Gwangju in South Korea; Žilina in Slovakia; Georgia in the US; and Yancheng in China.
Kia Motors says it regards afforestation as “a cornerstone for developing even more eco-friendly production facilities” because each tree is capable of absorbing up to 22kg of CO2 per year. The OEM had planted 4.94m at its factories by the end of 2015, enabling 107.5m tons of CO2 to be absorbed.
The introduction of more green space at each production location has enabled the company to avoid any instances of soil contamination since 2000. Last year, Kia also invested 38.5 billion Korean won ($34.9m) in green initiatives at its three domestic plants to prevent environmental issues at source – a 50% higher investment than in 2014. Many of these measures will be rolled out to its international manufacturing sites in the near future, the OEM added.