Sustainability in automotive: from ambition to action

Sustainability has become a major topic among automotive OEMs and suppliers. Increasing climate risks, regulations, and customer and investor pressures are pushing the automotive industry further into the new era of sustainability. In our newest Capgemini Research Institute report, Sustainability in Automotive: From ambition to action, we examine the various aspects of sustainability in automotive in depth.

To understand what organizations must do to meet their sustainability goals, we surveyed more than 1,000 automotive executives and interviewed automotive experts. We found that there has only been limited progress in the past three years. Implementation levels for sustainability initiatives in the industry’s top focus areas have either improved marginally, or even reduced since 2019. Several challenges facing the automotive industry today are stagnating implementation, including difficulty with linking sustainability to day-to-day activities, poor integration of key sustainability KPIs into performance management, and difficulty in collecting, managing, and analyzing sustainability data.

However, a small group of sustainability “Leaders” has emerged. These organizations have advanced sustainability strategies and a high level of implementation of sustainability initiatives. Importantly, they’re on track to meet their emissions targets and benefit in terms of operations and attracting talent.

To achieve their sustainability goals, organizations will have to transform their approaches in several ways. This will involve fast-tracking product and service evolution to decarbonize their vehicle fleet (including through transitioning to electric vehicles), establishing new processes and enhancing traditional ones for sustainability, and putting people at the heart of sustainable transition.

To read more about how organizations can achieve sustainability as they look towards the future of the automotive industry, download the report.