Carbon Capture and Re-Use Strategies for Optimising Decarbonisation of Automotive Manufacturing

In the race to a net zero global economy, decarbonisation of the transport sector represents a
significant challenge that requires holistic and systematic solutions. According to IEA, the transport
sector collectively accounted for around 8 Gt of emissions in 2022 (IEA, 2023b) or around 22% of
global emissions1
. Most of the current focus of abating the latter transport emissions has been on the
electrification of light and heavy transport fleets through adoption of battery electric vehicles (BEVs).
However, pure electrification of powertrains will not make the transport sector carbon neutral. This is
because around a fifth of the life cycle emissions of a typical internal combustion engine (ICE) car is
embedded in its production phase, and for BEVs the associated emissions are expected to be 1.5 to
2x higher (World Economic Forum & McKinsey&Company, 2020). In the light of these indirect car
production emissions, decarbonisation solutions are required for the automotive manufacturing and its
supply chain sectors.
However, the established production and supply chain processes in the automotive manufacturing are
complex that would require significant system re-design and innovation to achieve tangible
decarbonisation and sustainability results. This inherent complexity comes from the multi-tiered and
highly-dispersed nature of automotive manufacturing supply chain, centred around the needs of
original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). For instance, (Petavratzi & Gunn, 2023) categorised the
automotive manufacturing supply chain in 4 distinct tiers where (i) tier 4 includes material sourcing and
refining, (ii) tier 3 includes providers of vast range of processed materials such as cathodes and
metallic compounds, (iii) tier 2 includes suppliers of specialised products for the wide range of sectors,
and (iv) tier 4 - suppliers that tailor their product offering mostly for OEMs. On top of that, the
construction of automotive manufacturing site, its operation during production, and subsequent
dismantling of vehicles must be considered in the decarbonisation roadmap of the transport sector. In
short, the quest of carbon neutral automotive manufacturing is highly sophisticated.
Considering the complexity and extent of the automotive sector and it supply chain, the sustainability
avenues ought to be strategically selected and designed to deliver optimal decarbonisation
performance. This is important because the underlying systems of automotive sector are likely
exposed to a high degree of change throughout its lifecycle, similar to a typical engineering system (de
Neufville & Scholtes, 2011). Hence, the selected decarbonisation solutions should possess a degree
of changeability to remain commercially competitive in light of wide range of market, technology, and
existing environment dynamics (Fricke & Schulz, 2005). A potential solution to this is the use of flexible
system design which is an emerging system design paradigm, aimed at enhanced system
performance in light of uncertain market, technology, and regulatory conditions (Cardin et al., 2017).
Flexibility enables the system operator(-s) to adapt the design of the system based on a range of
possible outcomes; therefore, avoiding potential downsides such as over- or under-sized system
capacity and capturing favourable market or system conditions (Cardin & Hu, 2016; Cardin, 2014).