Celebrating a Week of Sustainability Holidays at Xos
Xos HQ in Los Angeles, CA
Xos is on a mission to create cleaner air for our communities and make it easier for businesses to go electric. Beyond our core focus of manufacturing emission-free trucks and simplifying the fleet electrification process, we remain committed to practicing sustainability every single day, on a macro and micro scale.
This week marks two environmental holidays: International Day of Climate Action on October 24th and Sustainability Day on October 27th. We are celebrating these days of action by taking a moment to pause and reflect on the sustainability efforts, initiatives, and partnerships we’ve made so far this year.
Sustainability Around the Office
At our office in Los Angeles, we believe there’s nothing too small to target when it comes to practicing sustainability and minimizing our overall carbon footprint. Here are a few ways we focus on being more environmentally conscious around the office:
Service and operations manuals are printed on recycled paper with vegetable inks. The printing and shipping of these manuals are also carbon offset.
The Xos Environmental Employee Resource Group shares educational materials and organizes volunteer days out of the office in the community.
Our bike share program enables Xos employees to bike to lunch or just to go for a spin to get a break from the indoors.
Xos team members at the Mountain Restoration Event at Paramount Ranch on June 25
Xos Volunteer Days
Besides the actions taken to save on resources at the office, Xos also supports responsible stewardship of our local environment. This past June, members of our team spent time restoring the landscape at Paramount Ranch, an area that was decimated by the Woolsey Fire in 2018, by teaming up with TreePeople, a local environmental nonprofit. As part of the event, Xos donated $2,500 to TreePeople to support their environmental efforts.
Xos volunteers nurtured approximately 50 seedlings that were planted to help the landscape recover, avoid soil erosion, and keep invasive plant species at bay. Trees are critical for absorbing carbon dioxide — a mature tree can absorb 48 pounds of carbon annually — and also offer shade, which can dramatically cool the area around them.
According to the U.S. Forest Center for Urban Forest Research, neighborhoods with well-shaded streets can be up to 6–10° F cooler than neighborhoods without street trees. In turn, well-shaded streets offer protection from the heat island effect.
A “heat island” is a highly urbanized region that experiences much higher temperatures compared to outlying areas. In cities and industrial areas, buildings, roads, and other infrastructure absorb heat from the sun and re-emit that heat back into the surrounding environment. With strategically placed trees and vegetation cover, urban areas can mitigate this effect.
Xos staff at the Santa Monica Beach September 18th cleanup
Check out the video below documenting the Mountain Restoration Day event with Xos volunteers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2cqBmjZ2Aw
Another Xos volunteer event was organized for California’s Coastal Cleanup Day on September 18th. Twenty team members participated in cleaning up Santa Monica Beach and collected fifty pounds of trash along the coast. In total, over 26,000 participants across the entire state collected more than 300,000 pounds of trash during Coastal Cleanup Day, which occurs annually each September.
Operational Sustainability
The Xos team after collecting 50 pounds of trash from the Santa Monica Beach coastline
One of the most important steps we’ve taken to prioritize sustainability operationally is our recently-announced remanufacturing partnership with Cox Automotive Mobility. At the end of the life of an Xos battery, its components are reused and retooled for second life use in off-highway equipment.
We’re excited to continue exploring opportunities within the manufacturing process where we can improve our carbon footprint.
Supporting the Sustainability Goals of Others
We’re in the business of manufacturing clean, fully-electric commercial vehicles and we’re honored to be part of our customers’ sustainability efforts and programs. As we continue to grow, we look forward to finding more ways to make it easier for businesses, governments, and other organizations to go electric.
