GM Facilities Answer Call of the Wildlife

Impalas and Stingrays aren’t the only animals prowling GM plants. Many of our facilities are teeming with wildlife.

From the bighorns that roam near our Desert Proving Ground in Yuma, Arizona, to the wild turkeys strutting the fields of our manufacturing complex in Spring Hill, Tennessee, we have many sites that are fertile grounds for not only building, designing and testing our vehicles but wildlife, too.

In fact, we actively manage nearly 5,000 acres of wildlife habitat at our sites around the world.

Yesterday we earned 15 new certifications and nine re-certifications from the Wildlife Habitat Council for establishing and enhancing wildlife habitats and education programs at our facilities in five countries, including the first certified program in China by any company.

The Wildlife Habitat Council’s Wildlife at Work and Corporate Lands for Learning programs recognize outstanding wildlife habitat management and environmental education efforts at corporate sites.

We maintain an industry-leading 43 certified programs across 40 global sites.

Features of some of the newly certified programs include:

• A 27,000-square-foot pollinator garden at the Guangde Proving Ground in China. Pollinators – rapidly declining worldwide – are critical to the reproduction of 90 percent of flowering plants and one third of human food crops worldwide.
• A three-acre artificial lagoon providing a natural wetland habitat for migrating and local birds at our Ramos Arizpe Complex in Mexico. The lagoon is particularly important in the water-stressed region of northern Mexico.
• Wetlands and containment lakes used for organic wastewater treatment at the company’s facilities in Joinville and São Caetano do Sul, Brazil. Employees showed students how sustainable manufacturing practices help preserve local watersheds and the flora and fauna that rely on them.
• Bat nesting boxes made from scrap Chevrolet Volt battery covers at Tonawanda Engine and several other facilities in the U.S. and Canada. The structures are designed to help preserve bat populations under threat due to white nose syndrome.

Two of our facilities earned special recognition on top of their certifications.

Our Lansing Delta Township plant earned Corporate Habitat of the Year, awarded to one high-quality Wildlife at Work program each year for outstanding environmental stewardship. The facility also received the Wings Over Wetlands award in recognition for protecting wetland habitat for waterfowl and other migratory birds.

Arlington Assembly was named Corporate Lands for LearningRookie of the Year, which recognizes a single, newly certifiedCorporate Lands for Learning program each year for outstanding environmental education, stewardship and voluntary employee efforts.

We’re committed to creating and securing wildlife habitat certifications or equivalent at each of our manufacturing sites where feasible by 2020. These new additions bring us closer to fulfilling that commitment.

To see more images of wildlife that populate our global facilities, follow us on Instagram at GMBeyondNow.