The Swedish automaker is doing its part to fight ocean pollution.
In today's business environment, it's not enough to just sell a product that people enjoy or find useful. Taking a stance on the needs of the environment, a social cause, or a health issue show that a company is more than dollars and cents on a balance sheet. Using a brand's gravitas and resources to shed light on an important need speaks volumes about the company itself, as well as its leadership.
Volvo is one such brand that's using its time, energy, and resources to better aid the ocean environment. When Volvo learned that a garbage truck's worth of plastic gets put in the ocean every minute, they decided to do something about it, starting in Australia.
With the help of 3D printing technology, Reef Design Lab, and the Sydney Institute for Marine Science, Volvo has installed 50 tiles along a seawall in the Sydney Harbor. The tiles were designed to look like mangrove trees, which are native to Australia, in order to attract filter-feeding organisms to populate and colonize within the tiles to soak up pollutants. For the next 20 years, the tiles will be monitored to showcase the improvements made to the water.
And Volvo didn't stop at building seawall tiles. Volvo's Ocean Races host beach cleanups across the globe and they've also declared that they'll cease using single-use plastic materials at all offices, events, and canteens by the end of 2019.
Volvo has shown that they are more than just an automaker, they are a changemaker. If there's one thing corporations can do, aside from selling their merchandise, it's to do their part in making a better tomorrow.
