Currently automobile manufacturers are competing for the reputation of being the most climate-friendly carmaker. So far, the debate has almost exclusively focused on the usage phase of automobiles and related CO2 fleet emissions, while the substantial environmental burden created during the production phase has been largely ignored.
This survey attempts to close this gap. The study is the first in the world to assess the sustainability performance of 16 automobile manufacturers using the Sustainable Value approach. The Sustainable Value approach enables efficiency gains to be expressed in a single monetary figure through benchmarking a company’s production resource efficiency against its competitors. The Sustainable Value approach is the first approach to apply this opportunity cost logic – as it is used in the financial markets – to environmental and social resources.
The report found that, in 2005, Toyota generated an absolute Sustainable Value of €6.5 billion, followed by BMW with a Sustainable Value of €2.93 billion, i.e. Toyota generated €6.5 billion more profit than the average automobile producer would have achieved with the same set of resources. To assess the sustainability performance of companies of different sizes we also calculated how much Sustainable Value was created relative to sales. In 2005, BMW generated € 6.3 Sustainable Value per € 100 of sales. With € 5.9 Sustainable Value on €100 sales Toyota comes in as a close second.