June 16, 2008 - The newly constructed Volvo Trucks dealership in Verona, Italy, is netting some extra income with a rooftop solar array that generates more energy than the facility needs, allowing Volvo to sell the excess power to the local grid.

The Volvo Truck Center in Verona is the company's first climate-neutral dealership facility.

The dealership will be heated using fossil methane gas. However, the surplus electricity that the solar panels generate "more than compensates" for the carbon dioxide emissions caused by burning the methane gas, according to Volvo.

Over the past year, Volvo Trucks has implemented a range of measures to address its climate impact. Last August, Volvo demonstrated seven new low-emissions trucks, each running on a different renewable fuel. In September, the company's largest production facility in Ghent, Belgium, became the world's first climate-neutral vehicle factory.

"These activities show that even a player in heavy industry can reduce climate impact to a major extent - from both its products and its facilities," says Lars Martensson, environment affairs manager at Volvo Trucks.

Volvo has plans in the works for several more climate-neutral factories, Martensson says.