10 top car manufacturers launch raw materials sustainability assessment

Car manufacturers including BMW, Ford, Toyota, and Volvo, have partnered to launch a project that assesses the sustainability of sourcing the raw materials used for cars.

10 leading car brands joined a five-year long cooperation, dubbed Drive Sustainability, and have now announced the Raw Materials Observatory.

The 10 companies involved are: Daimler AG; Honda; JLR; Scania; VW; Volvo Cars; Volvo Group; BMW; Ford; and Toyota.

The project will address the environmental and human rights issues within the supply chain of some of the materials used within manufacturing.

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Building a vehicle require more than 30,000 components, with raw materials including aluminium, mica, cobalt and rubber – all of which have been known to implement environmental and social risks when acquiring them.

“This will allow Drive Sustainability to identify the most impactful activities to pursue in order to address the human, ethical and environmental issues within the supply chain,” reported Stefan Crets, Executive Director of CSR Europe, which oversees Drive Sustainability.

“For Drive Sustainability this is an occasion to contribute to cross-sector actions to tackle child labour issues and unacceptable working conditions in the raw materials supply chain,” he added.

The companies have committed to monitoring and promoting the principles Drive Sustainability stands for.