BERLIN, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Robert Bosch GmbH aims to become "the first major industrial enterprise to achieve the ambitious goal of carbon neutrality in a little over a year," the German engineering company announced at its annual press conference on Thursday.
By 2020, Bosch plans to make its 400-odd locations worldwide fully carbon-neutral.
"We see climate action as our responsibility and believe we have to act now," stressed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Volkmar Denner.
In order to cut its own CO2 emissions, Bosch plans to "buy more green electricity" in the short term and offset "unavoidable CO2 emissions" with compensation measures.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), industry accounts for almost one-third of the world's CO2 emissions.
Bosch plans to invest 2 billion euros (2.24 billion U.S. dollars) in offsetting CO2 emissions and increasing its renewable energy supply and energy efficiency.
"By virtue of increasing energy efficiency," Bosch expects to save 1 billion euros and thereby reduce the final cost of its carbon-neutrality project to 1 billion euros.
In addition to achieving carbon neutrality, he world's largest automotive industry supplier also announced its aim to "reduce air pollution from traffic to virtually zero."
Bosch said that electric vehicles would play a major role in improving air quality in cities and is seeking to generate 5 billion euros in sales with electric mobility by 2025.
Nonetheless, Bosch expects roughly 75 percent of all new cars and light commercial vehicles to still be powered by an internal-combustion engine in 2030. In view of this, Bosch "will continue to invest considerable sums in optimizing gasoline and diesel engines."
Overall, Bosch expects "economic developments to be subdued" in 2019 and is "skeptical about the prospects not only for the global economy but also for most of our major market segments."
Bosch's largest market, the automotive sector, would be particularly affected by an economic slowdown. The company expects automotive production to fall by 3 percent to 94.7 million vehicles in 2019.
This would be the first time that production figures "have contracted in two successive years since the financial crisis", and Bosch even says that automotive production figures "will probably drop below 2016 levels."
Bosch also announced that its sales revenue increased by 2.2 percent to 78.5 billion euros in 2018. Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) from operations reached 5.5 billion euros, compared to 5.3 billion euros the previous year.
Mobility business, the German company's largest segment, increased revenues by 3.5 percent to 47.6 billion euros last year.
