Motor manufacturers launch ethical sourcing initiative

Ten leading motor manufacturers have joined forces to set up a Raw Materials Observatory to identify and address ethical, environmental, human and labour rights issues in the sourcing of raw materials.

The companies are members of the Drive Sustainability partnership, which has already been working on improving the sustainability of the automotive supply chain for the past five years.

Stefan Crets, executive director of CSR Europe, which coordinates this partnership, said: “The Raw Material Observatory will assess the risks posed by the top raw materials (such as mica, cobalt, rubber, leather and others) in the automotive sector. This will allow Drive Sustainability to identify the most impactful activities to pursue to address the human, ethical and environmental issues within the supply chain.”

The members of Drive Sustainability are BMW, Daimler, Ford, Honda, Jaguar Land Rover, Scania, Toyota, Volkswagen, Volvo Cars and Volvo Group.

The risk assessment of the top raw materials will be conducted by The Dragonfly Initiative – a specialized sustainability advisory firm. Based on its results (ready by January 2018) and on the input received from stakeholders, Drive Sustainability will unveil its action plan to address these risks at the beginning of 2018.