The Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor evaluates the transparency and integrity of companies’ climate strategies, with the objectives of identifying good practices and highlighting areas for improvement in the corporate climate accountability system.
This section presents a selection of key insights from the detailed analysis of the climate strategies of five major automobile companies: Ford, General Motors, Stellantis, Toyota and Volkswagen.
We find that the companies assessed – the five largest incumbent manufacturers of light-duty vehicles – are making inadequate progress in accelerating the long-overdue transition to electric mobility.
• The 2030 emission reduction targets of the companies assessed remain critically insufficient. With one notable exception in Stellantis, we find little to no progress in improving the ambition of these targets despite the urgent need for decarbonisation in the passenger transport sector.
• Beyond 2030, four out of five automakers’ longer-term carbon neutrality and net-zero pledges lack integrity due to the absence of concrete emission reduction commitments substantiating these pledges and an overall lack of specificity.
• On their key sectoral transition, four out of five automotive companies have only made insufficient commitments to phase out internal combustion engines. Existing commitments remain vague and fall short of aligning with 1.5°C-compatible pathways, despite the urgent need to transition their business models towards electric vehicles.
• Progress in increasing the shares of battery electric vehicle sales over the past five years has been mixed among the five manufacturers, casting doubt on their ability to meet their 2030 sales targets – let alone achieve sales shares in line with a 1.5°C-compatible pathway.
• Apart from some commitments to purchase near-zero steel and aluminium, other key transitions – such as reducing emissions from battery production and improving electric vehicle efficiency – remain mostly neglected by companies and standard setters.
