From the word go, the environment has always been an important issue for us - and our policy follows strict environmental guidelines. Protecting the environment, energy efficiency and preserving natural resources are all key considerations. These start with smart development, run through production in smartville and end in the recycling of many smart components.

Development
Even in the development phase we use eco-friendly parts. And we insist that all our system partners take these requirements as seriously as we do. This means that the parts and components they deliver should be developed and manufactured to the same strict ecological criteria. From the outset harmful substances like lead, chromium, mercury and cadmium are barred from the production process and PVC is almost completely avoided.

smart control system: The whole development process is tracked by an ecological control system specially created to monitor compliance with these strict regulations. All development teams, whether directly or indirectly involved are an integral part of this system. Since 1997, the Böblingen site has been certified to ISO 14001 by external inspectors.

Production
Powder-coating is the painting technique used on our smart tridion safety cell. Generally regarded as the most environmentally-friendly painting method in the automotive industry, it’s a unique innovation.

40% less energy: Powder coating uses 40% less energy than conventional painting methods, with zero solvent emissions. Paint slurry is a thing of the past too. We collect surplus powder paint and 98% is then reused for painting. Another ecological advantage is that there’s no water consumption and no waste water either!

Recycling
Things often need to be dismantled before they can be recycled. That's why the smart has been engineered to make this process a whole lot easier - because it's made from modules!

Born again: smarts are built from pre-assembled modules. It's this modular system that makes dismantling the cars much simpler. And this in turn makes it much easier to strip-out and grade the materials for re-use - so some parts of a smart see the light of day more than once. That's also why we much prefer to use synthetics as they are easier to recycle.

Environmental Management
At smart we've our own environmental management system. This describes all the responsibilities and processes required for implementing our environmental policy. It also makes our environmental objectives crystal clear.

smart objectives: Even when smart was in development, we were thinking about a process-driven environmental management system.

So we were able to work towards implementing our environmental policy and achieving our objectives right from the off. We were delighted when our system was was certified to DIN EN ISO 14001 in February 1997 at our Böblingen facility. And annual internal and external auditing makes sure this system follows a continuous improvement.