Joinville Engine

About the Program

The global car manufacturer General Motors has a strong presence in Brazil, including their Joinville Engine operation that opened in 2012. Located about 90 miles south of Curitiba near Brazil’s central coast, this site manufactures engines and powertrain components. In addition, its staff manages over 11 acres of forest and landscape habitat, species projects and educational initiatives with students, employees and their families. Their large property also includes over 50 acres of secondary rainforest and water bodies that are not actively part of any project. The objectives of conservation efforts range from creating quality bat and pollinator habitats to providing learning opportunities that enhance environmental awareness and knowledge about water habitats and deforestation. 

Practices and Impacts

Landscaped

• A variety of mostly native plants provide flowers and fruit for wildlife and green space for enjoyment of employees.
• Plants are monitored monthly for blooming, with the intention of attracting pollinators.

Pollinators 

• Since September 2017, the project has targeted a diverse group of pollinator species, including eight butterflies, three families of solitary bee, and birds like the swallow-tailed hummingbird and southern lapwing.
• The team maintains and relocates new plants, insect hotels and bird houses to provide quality habitat and food sources.
• Monthly monitoring involves a walkthrough of the plant providing information about the species, life stage and abundance, where results have noted that biodiversity has steadily increased.

Community Awareness

• Since June 2017, the project has included visual presentations as well as employee and family visits to the habitat for educational purposes. 
• Responding to employee interest in environmental topics and awareness, 12 events occur throughout the year involving about 250 individuals.
• Employees complete regular monitoring efforts for a number of projects, in addition to supporting maintenance efforts.
• To improve the project, visual presentations and virtual testing options will continue and tools to grade quizzes will be added.

 World Environment Day

• Since June 2014, the project has relayed content about the Atlantic Forest habitat that can be found on-site, and activities have been designed to include field visits and tree planting. 
• Responding to a need for hands-on learning about the local forest and deforestation, over 150 students from grade school through high school participate once a year to learn about ecosystem characteristics, environmental restoration and conservation.
• In addition to visual presentations, in 2019, the project involved students planting trees in an on-site forest habitat.

Batman

• Since late 2020, this project targets the 46 bat species native to the Brazil state of Santa Catarina.
• Specifically, it provides habitat with native fruit and nectar trees and the installation of bat boxes in quiet areas. 
• Habitat maintenance activities occur regularly, and monitoring efforts observed for bats, bitten fruit and guano. 
• While five monitoring events have occurred, no presence of bats have been noted, possibly due to location of bat boxes, disturbance of planted trees due to ant infestation and need for more diverse habitat.

Tree Day

• Started in mid-2014, this project involves facility tours, including visits to insect hotels and managed habitats. However, content transitioned to a virtual presentation in 2021.
• Since 2019, over 90 young students have participated in the annual event involving broad educational content ranging from natural landscapes and biodiversity to human interventions.
• The project helps students learn about the importance of local trees, forests and environmental processes in face of the increasing deforestation threats, with outcomes evaluated via pre- and post-event questionnaires.
• Future actions will include improvement through earlier communication with schools and identifying accommodation needs, in addition to continuing visual presentations and virtual tools that have been successful.