Written By: Jonas Burke
A few days ago Ford Motor Company, the Michigan based automotive company and second largest automaker in the U.S, released its 14th annual sustainability report. The report is easily accessible online and the webpage is complete with interactive diagrams, charts, and even a game or two.
The company is targeting a 30 percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions per vehicle from its factories by 2025 after a 37 percent cut from 2000 to 2010. On top of reducing its Greenhouse emissions, Ford is planning to reduce the amount of waste generated by manufacturing by 41% per vehicle over the next five years. In 2011 Ford sent 22.7 lbs of waste to a landfill per vehicle –the new goal is 13.4 lbs.
Ford has also pledged to reduce energy consumption in its 25 manufacturing plants, to reduce water-use-per-vehicle by 30%, and has developed a new alternative energy plan. Ford’s Sustainable Technologies and Alternative Fuels plan, lays out a plan to improve the fuel efficiency of their products and advance the use of alternative fuels including electricity and bio-fuels.
These new initiatives are due in a large part to Ford’s chief financial officer Bob Shanks. According to a Deloitte LLP survey last year companies with at least $1 billion annual revenue are transferring authorities of corporate sustainability from line sustainability managers and CEOs to CFOs. By consolidating sustainability authority into the chief financial adviser, Ford has succeeded to strengthen the rocky relationship between environmental concerns and economic ones. The struggle between green technology and annual profits is ever-present, but Ford has realized that environmental issues must be framed in an economic lens.