The Automotive Industry in the Era of Sustainability
Executive summary
With growing concerns of climate change and environmental degradation, sustainability has become a strategic priority for automotive organizations. Governments, consumers and investors are now pushing automotive organizations
to change their ways of working, culture and products. This will have far reaching implications for the industry, that while making substantial progress still requires to step up its sustainability efforts.
Our research tried to gauge how the automotive industry is responding to the challenge. This includes scrutinizing their progress and initiatives with the collective knowledge of more than 300 sustainability experts and regulators. Our key findings are:
• Sustainability is a strategic issue for the automotive industry and key to organization purpose
• The implementation of sustainability initiatives is fragmented and lacking on many fronts:
– Some areas such as sustainable R&D and sustainable manufacturing – which are closer to the core competency of the industry – receive greater attention. But there is not a consistent focus on sustainability initiatives across the value chain. For instance, sustainable sales, marketing, aftersales and mobility services and vehicle usage are pursued by only a minority.
– Most organizations do not have a central governance body for sustainability and only half of the automotive industry have sustainability targets for key executives.
• An estimated USD 50 billion is required over the next five years to meet their sustainability targets in addition to the current investment in electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles and digital mobility services.
• Two critical areas will drive maximum sustainability impact for the automotive industry:
– Ensuring that electric vehicles are truly sustainable. Based on the grid which charges EVs, in the 27 EU countries and the UK, for example, the shift to electric vehicles would cut the overall lifetime greenhouse (GHG) footprint by about 37% for passenger vehicles while reducing the operating footprint by 75%, when powered by renewable sources.
– Incorporating circular economy practices across the automotive value chain. Circular economy has the potential to offer big economic benefits and make EVs more sustainable. However, currently, only 32% of the automotive organizations’ supply chain contributes to the circular economy.
• Based on learnings from sustainability leaders (less than 10% of organizations we analysed), we highlight key best practices:
– Demonstrate tangible progress on sustainability by adopting standardized public disclosures.
– Pursue sustainability as an organization-wide mission
– Make business executives accountable for sustainability and invest in robust governance
– Envision and spread sustainability initiatives across the automotive value chain
– Use technology to improve sustainability of operations
– Strengthen alliances and partnerships for greater impact
这份《可持续发展时代的汽车行业》(The Automotive Industry in the Era of Sustainability)报告指出,为实现既定的国际目标,汽车行业必须弥合其当前20%的投资差距。报告还发现,在报告调查分析的500家汽车企业中,仅有9%属于“高效可持续发展领导者“,有91%企业尚未推出成熟的可持续发展战略,还有26%企业在可持续发展方面表现“落后”。