SEAT will participate until 2023 in the Life Landfill Biofuel project (recently approved by the European Commission) the goal of which is to obtain renewable gas from municipal landfills.

The aim is to achieve more efficient management by obtaining biomethane from an indigenous, abundant energy source. The project will be developed with other partners for the next four years and has an overall budget of €4.6 million , of which the European Commission will fund 55%.

With the goal of boosting the circular economy, energy efficiency and emissions reduction, SEAT is currently working on the Life Methamorphosis project to obtain biomethane from previously selected waste and animal slurry from a farm in Lleida. The new Life Landfill Biofuel project is a step further as the raw material originates directly from the landfill, without prior separation.

The European Union is going to limit to 10% the amount of municipal waste that can be dumped in landfills by 2035. For this reason, converting waste into vehicular biofuel is one solution to this environmental challenge. Other organizations also participating in this new project include FCC, IVECO, The University of Granada, the CARTIF Foundation, SYSADVANCE and Gasnam. Furthermore, SEAT has also developed a similar project with Aqualia to convert waste water into biofuel.

SEAT is the European carmaker with the broadest range of vehicles fuelled with compressed natural gas (CNG), with four models produced in the company’s plant in Martorell: the Leon, the Leon Sportourer, the Ibiza and the Arona, the only CNG SUV in the world.

In 2018, the company tripled its sales of CNG Vehicles and announced an investment of €6 million to expand the capacity of the Martorell factory, raising the daily production figure of gas fuelled vehicles from 90 to 250.

So far this year, the company has increased sales of its CNG vehicles in Europe by 13% over the previous year with 11,800 units sold. In addition, SEAT is the Volkswagen Group’s center of excellence for the technological development of compressed natural gas as an alternative fuel.