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New Common Strategy for Sustainable Automotive Value Chains

Sustainable raw materials, workforce well-being, carbon neutrality and circular value chains are at the core of the new strategy adopted in April by the ten leading automotive companies of Drive Sustainability. In 2020, the collaborative platform facilitated by CSR Europe will focus on broadening the scope of the initiative in their engagement with suppliers and stakeholders.

The transformation towards a circular and sustainable automotive value chain cannot be achieved by a single company alone. It needs a concerted effort, bringing together industry, civil society, authorities and all the other interested and relevant parties. For this reason, in April 2020, companies of the collaborative platform Drive Sustainability (DS), facilitated by CSR Europe, widened  their common strategy and action plan for a circular and sustainable automotive value chain.

Drive Sustainability represents a successful example of a collaborative platform, where leading companies engage with their value-chain peers and work together with other stakeholders to transform the entire eco-system into a more sustainable one” explains Stefan Crets, CSR Europe Executive Director.

The lead partners - BMW Group, Daimler AG, Scania CV AB, Volkswagen Group, Volvo Cars, Volvo Group - and the partners – Ford, Honda, Jaguar Land Rover, Toyota Motor Europe – aspire to scale up their activities and engage with their suppliers and stakeholders  on four sustainability challenges:

1.     Sustainable raw materials: to source raw materials sustainably

2.     Workforce wellbeing: to ensure employees in the supply chain are treated well and empowered

3.     Carbon neutrality: to strive towards a carbon neutral supply chain

4.     Circular value chain: to promote circular use of resources in the value-chains

How will the DS consortium achieve these four ambitions?  For the next years, the activities and milestones have been outlined in the action plan 2020-2030, and include for instance the agreement on and promotion of a common standardised method and tool to measure and reduce emissions in the supply chain. For Drive Sustainability, 2019 was the year of disseminating the partners’ consolidated global approach to supplier assessments, trainings and capacity-building activities. Instead, 2020 will be all about broadening the scope of the initiative.

Collaborative platforms like Drive Sustainability have the potential to raise the integration of sustainability and boost expertise within businesses while revealing opportunities within the challenges posed by the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Sustainability issues can be overwhelming to tackle by single company alone due to their cross-border and cross-sector nature. The good news is that you do not have to. With many stakeholders in the same situation, all you have to do is taking the first step: collaborate. Where to start? CSR Europe has a proven track record of incubating and managing new partnerships to scale up impact successfully:

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