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Tesla is showing that rapid supply chain sustainability improvements are feasible: study

Credit: Tesla Asia/X

Tesla has made significant strides in improving its supply chain sustainability and human rights practices, as per a new study by environmental group Lead the Charge. This was highlighted by the fact that the electric vehicle giant jumped from ninth to third place in the group’s annual Auto Supply Chain Leaderboard and Report. 

Lead the Charge’s Auto Supply Chain Leaderboard and Report analyzes publicly available data from 18 of the industry’s leading automotive manufacturers. The study also provides rankings of automakers’ efforts to eliminate emissions, environmental harms, and human rights violations from their supply chains. In a press release, Lead the Charge noted that its study comes at a crucial time as industry experts are calling for automakers to foster a cleaner supply chain. 

Credit: Lead the Charge

Tesla is among the automakers that stood out in Lead the Charge’s study. As per the environmental group, Tesla achieved the largest score increase among its peers in the study, with the company jumping from ninth to third place. Tesla was also the only company to make improvements across all eight of the study’s indicator categories.

As per Lead the Charge’s 2024 Auto Supply Chain Leaderboard: 

“Tesla was the big improver of the year. The EV manufacturer increased its Leaderboard performance by 21 percentage points, moving Tesla’s ranking from ninth last year into the top three this year. Tesla’s improvements demonstrate what other automakers can achieve with more dedicated effort. Tesla improved across all eight subsections of the Leaderboard — the only automaker to do so — with changes most noticeable in the fossil-free and environmentally sustainable supply chains section (up 20 percentage points and boosted a further 20% due to Tesla’s positive climate lobbying record).

“A significant factor in this was Tesla going from the minority of automakers not disclosing its scope 3 supply chain emissions at all last year to becoming the only company to disclose disaggregated supply chain emissions by steel, aluminum and battery production this year. The company also made important improvements within the responsible transition mineral sourcing subsection (up 29 percentage points). 

“In addition, Tesla has a revised requirement on Indigenous Peoples’ right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) in its responsible sourcing policy, and now discloses specific, albeit insufficient, information on the risks to Indigenous Peoples’ rights that it has identified through its broader human rights due diligence assessment of human rights risks in its supply chain.”

Lead the Charge’s 2024 Auto Supply Chain Leaderboard and Report can be viewed below. 

2024LTC Report V11 by Simon Alvarez on Scribd

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Tesla is showing that rapid supply chain sustainability improvements are feasible: study
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