Polestar wants to build truly climate-neutral cars by 2030

Any time you see a company portray its product, whatever it may be, as “climate” or “carbon” neutral, it means the company made sizable investments in offsetting whatever emissions occur in the production process. Basically, we don’t have the technology to make every product squeaky clean. But Polestar said on Wednesday it’s on a path to make it happen. By 2030, it plans to build climate-neutral cars without the need for any sort of offsetting projects.

Titled the “Polestar 0 Project,” the brand’s goal is to rethink the production process for the future, iron out a system to balance carbon emissions and sell cars without the carbon footprint they currently come with. Although Polestar sells electric cars, there’s still a lot of emissions that come from mining battery materials, refining said materials and, of course, building the entire car.

It won’t be easy, and the 2030 timeframe is pretty ambitious. But Polestar plans to bake this climate goal into all of its business segments. That even includes climate targets for its employee bonus system. The company will hold itself accountable even further with “product sustainability declarations.” You know how you see the calorie count for your favorite fast food meal these days? This is in the same vein. Polestar will post a car’s carbon footprint and traced risk materials online and at the brand’s retail spaces. That way, consumers can see what goes into building a Polestar EV.

Come 2030, however, these carbon-footprint “receipts” won’t show a footprint at all, if Polestar has its way.