Investment in corporate sustainability is essential for four reasons: first, it helps the environment; second, it boosts the company’s financial performance; third, it provides employees with a safer and healthier workplace environment; and fourth, it positions the business as obtaining a competitive advantage (Cpetroff, 2021). This article will discuss how Ford Motor Company has impressively demonstrated its commitment to corporate social responsibility, particularly concerning the environment and ethical approaches. The more extensive sustainability practices that Ford Motor Company has included in their business and how they have reflected on it here can serve as a model for other firms to imitate. We will examine what they may do to enhance their green marketing strategy in light of this.
Environment Approaches
They are expediting their transition to carbon neutrality by 2050 as part of their bid to overcome the severity of climate change. They achieve this by developing a brand-new electrical vehicle infrastructure by reinventing how electric vehicles and the batteries which fuel them are built, produced, and discarded—additionally creating worthwhile employment and a thriving company that benefits all Ford customers. By continuing to electrify and working toward being carbon neutral by the year 2050, they continue to reduce their influence on environmental issues per “United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change” and Paris Agreement (Ford, 2022, p. 83). Using various analytical methods, they discover and assess any possible adverse effects of their products or services on the environment or their bottom line throughout their useful lives (Ford, 2022). Some examples of progress they make are as the following.
They opened the door for Ford to issue its green bond, which garnered $2,500 billion for a 10-year plan to finance the company’s new lineup of electric vehicles using new environmental initiatives (Dearborn, 2022). Ford and SK Innovation publicly stated an intended $11,400 billion provision for BlueOval City and three battery plants in the BlueOval SK partnership (Dearborn, 2022). These mega-sites will produce close to “11,000 new jobs in Tennesse” and contribute to developing a manufacturing ecosystem with a viable mode of financing (Ford, 2022, p. 30). They took part in the United States’ Department of Energy’s “Better Climate Challenge”, which calls for at least a 50% reduction of co2 emissions from its facilities by 2023 (Ford, 2022, p. 83). Ford and Redwood Materials are working together to develop more cost-effective and environmentally friendly electric car solutions, including possibilities for recycling used batteries (Dearborn, 2022). With increased investments to design, research, and construct car batteries, the company also intends to launch Ford Ion Park, a worldwide battery hub in the southeast of Michigan, United States (Ford, 2022, p. 83; Dearborn, 2022). Ford developed “89 waste-free landfills” worldwide and cut its yearly water use by more than 78 percent from 2000 while also increasing its worldwide production ecological footprint by over 35 percent since 2017 (Ford, 2022, p. 6).
Ethical Practices and Approaches
They adopt transparency, ethics, and integrity procedures toward data protection, privacy, security, and duty to the government to meet their pledge to implement responsible and ethical growth (Ford, 2022). To act ethically, they must treat all their extended stakeholders and shareholders fairly and respectfully. They have succeeded in following through and carrying out their ethical convictions.
To fulfill the engagement to accomplish government goals to create the job opportunity, within five years in the future, Ford shall devote over $525 million to the professional advancement and education of automotive mechanics who will work on connected and electrified cars (Dearborn, 2022). The corporation instituted a broad diversification, equality, and inclusiveness objective to create a future workforce. Ford moved toward pay fairness by extending its diversity, justice, and inclusiveness audit from the United States to seven other markets (Ford, 2022). Ford Fund donated more than 74 million dollars to charities to help those in need worldwide and 120 million dollars during the COVID crisis (Dearborn, 2022).
Possible Improvements
Notably, Ford implemented some International Organizational Standardization of ISO 14021 for sustainable materials standards in their green effort (Ford, 2022). However, it will improve their environmental sustainability marketing achievement if they refer to ISO 5001:2018, which arranges the energy management system that helps enterprises utilize energy more effectively by establishing the plan (Cpetroff, 2021). Other than that, they must also apply standards for an environmental management system that a company to enhance environmental sustainability are laid forth in ISO 14001:2015. Ford may manage their ecological obligations with the aid of ISO 14001:2015 in a structured, methodical manner (Cpetroff, 2021).
Conclusion
This article exemplifies Ford’s dedication to environmental sustainability and gives a comprehensive snapshot of how they prioritized people and upheld human rights as they transitioned to electric vehicles. This decision was associated with environmental preservation, as Ford realized that if something is beneficial to the environment is also suitable for their clients and commercial. Since their initial report 23 years ago, they have consistently improved and implemented their environmental and ethical sustainability goals (Dearborn, 2022). They emphasized the company’s transformation to become the leader of the electric revolution, including ambitions to ramp up manufacturing to further than 2 million electric vehicles annually by 2026 and have half of its annual volume of sales be electrical by the end of this century (Ford, 2022).
References
Cpetroff. (2021, April 16). Environmental Sustainability Business Goals [with 45 real world examples]. ITU AbsorbTech. https://ituabsorbtech.com/environmental-sustainability-business-goals-real-world-examples/
Dearborn, M. (2022, March 31). Ford releases inaugural human rights report, increases climate risk disclosure in 2022 integrated report as it transitions to electric future. Ford Media Center. https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/feu/en/news/2022/03/31/2022-Integrated-Sustainability-and-Financial-Report.html
Ford. (2022). Integrated Sustainability and Financial Report 2022. https://corporate.ford.com/content/dam/corporate/us/en-us/documents/reports/integrated-sustainability-and-financial-report-2022.pdf
Muhammad, F. (2017, October 19). Ford f150 ford logo grill windshield headlamp light f-150 pick-up black [Photograph]. Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/grill-windshield-ford-f150-headlamp-2864866/
