The BMW Group announced three major sustainability initiatives at the BMW Group Sustainable Future Conference in Durban this week.

The conference was a side event at COP17.

"The BMW Group will reinforce its position as the world's most sustainable automaker by being the first manufacturer to bring e-mobility to SA's roads," BMW South Africa's MD Bodo Donauer said. "We will give our customers the chance to experience the Mini E at a series of countrywide roadshows in the first half of 2012," he said.

In South Africa, the company has almost halved energy usage and emissions at the BMW plant at Rosslyn in Pretoria. "However, we believe we can do more and have conducted a renewable energy project investigating the technical and economic feasibility of supplying Rosslyn power solely by means of renewable energy, or in combination with the existing power supply," Donauer said.

This project will involve using methane gas - converted from unusable organic waste at a landfill site in Onderstepoort - at the Rosslyn plant.

BMW also announced a major corporate social responsibility project in KwaZulu-Natal. The company's maths, science and technology excellence project will be implemented in five schools in the Nyavini district, south of Durban.

Lastly, in partnership with the provincial Department of Health, BMW will build an HIV/Aids clinic in the Nyavini district.