Lead the Charge Leaderboard

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[00:01:18] Hello, everyone and welcome to Kelawata Podcast about electric vehicles, renewable energy, autonomous

[00:01:28] driving and much, much more. My name is Bode and I am your host. And on today's show, we have an

[00:01:35] interview with some folks from Lead the Charge. Now if you don't know what Lead the Charge is,

[00:01:40] that's okay. I didn't know what it was either before they contacted me.

[00:01:44] Lead the Charge is an organization that puts out an annual report or an annual ranking of

[00:01:48] the top global EV automakers and how clean or not clean their supply chains are. And as an

[00:01:55] interesting side note, Tesla made huge gains in this report from 2022 to 2023. They're the only

[00:02:04] automaker to improve in every category from climate impact human rights. And if you're

[00:02:09] interested in this kind of thing, you can go to leadthecharge.org and check it out yourself. I will

[00:02:14] say they have a very informative website. All right, let's get to our guest introductions. We

[00:02:21] actually had three folks from Lead the Charge and Lead the Charge is an organization that is made

[00:02:27] up of members of several other organizations. So we have Catherine Garcia who's the director of

[00:02:32] Clean Transportation for the Sierra Club. We have Cecilia Meta from Transport and Environment.

[00:02:40] She is the battery and supply chain policy manager over there. And finally we have Chris

[00:02:45] Alford who is the senior strategist on the auto supply chain program for the Sunrise Project.

[00:02:52] All right, having said all that, let's go ahead and welcome everyone to the program.

[00:02:57] Let's start by having everyone introduce themselves so that the audience can learn

[00:03:02] whose voice is whose. And let's start with Chris. Sure, hi there Bodhi. My name is Chris Alford.

[00:03:08] I'm based out of Mexico City originally from the UK but I've been living in Latin America for

[00:03:14] about 12 years. And I work with an organization called the Sunrise Project which is a global

[00:03:20] organization focused on climate justice and accelerating in particular corporate action on

[00:03:28] the climate crisis. And I'm a senior strategist on the auto supply chain program within our program,

[00:03:36] broader program on global clean corporates. Great to be here.

[00:03:39] Nice to have you Chris. Thank you. And then Catherine, can you introduce yourself for us?

[00:03:44] Sure. Hi, I'm Catherine Garcia. I am based in Washington DC and I work for the Sierra Club

[00:03:52] which is a grassroots organization that has chapters all over the country working to ensure

[00:04:00] that we have a healthy planet and are enjoying the outdoors. I lead the Clean Transportation

[00:04:07] for All campaign which is focused on reducing pollution from the transportation sector.

[00:04:14] Excellent, thank you very much and welcome Cecilia. Can you tell us a little bit about you?

[00:04:20] Hello everyone. So I'm Cecilia Matthea. I work for Green NGO Transport and Environment.

[00:04:27] We are a Belgium based organization so I'm calling in from Brussels

[00:04:32] and the Borderism Supply Chain Policy Manager. So my role in transferring environment to TNE is

[00:04:38] to make sure that the raw materials that we need for the transition are sourced responsibly

[00:04:44] and the role that policy makers and regulation can play in this. And to any one broad

[00:04:49] meaning, we work on decarbonizing transport so we work on cars, trucks but also aviation and

[00:04:56] shipping. Okay, do you do trains at all? Is that counted under shipping? We also have a team

[00:05:04] working on trains so trains are mainly electrified so not so much the decarbonization aspect of it

[00:05:13] but more the accessibility and affordability elements so how to make train travel better

[00:05:20] for our consumers in conversation with aviation of course.

[00:05:24] So I really like Lead the Charge. I like the mission for Lead the Charge which is at its core

[00:05:31] all vehicles made equitably, sustainably and fossil free so I really like that.

[00:05:39] Can you tell me and anybody can take this question but can you tell me a little bit

[00:05:43] more about Lead the Charge as a because it's not really an organization it's a group of

[00:05:48] organizations. Yeah I can take that so Lead the Charge is a network of organizations based

[00:05:55] around the world working together for about two years. It's global because the manufacturing

[00:06:02] of vehicles is global and our vision is to achieve a sustainable automotive market

[00:06:11] so this network is made up of a lot of different organizations with expertise in

[00:06:16] climate, environmental justice, human rights, indigenous rights and heavy industry and this

[00:06:21] is really the first time that this project has come together and I think it's been really

[00:06:29] successful to get the conversation started about why we need a sustainable automotive market.

[00:06:36] And then let's talk a little bit about the Lead the Charge leader board which is not specific

[00:06:42] like you're not looking at ICE cars you're looking at EVs is that right?

[00:06:49] Yeah so the focus of the leader board is really looking at the opportunity that the EV transition

[00:06:55] presents which we fully support as also an opportunity to address issues that have plagued

[00:07:04] automotive supply chains for decades. So really looking at as automotive supply chains are being

[00:07:10] transformed to serve the EV transition how can we transform these so that they are also

[00:07:16] free from fossil fuels and then also address many issues to do with environmental devastation

[00:07:22] and human rights issues that have happened along ICE vehicle supply chains for many years.

[00:07:27] In terms of the leader board itself we select automakers that are currently

[00:07:34] leading the transition to electric vehicles to evaluate so in that sense yes we do focus

[00:07:39] on EV manufacturers and the reason for that is because we think that automakers who are

[00:07:43] leading the transition to electric vehicles are going to be the biggest automakers in the future

[00:07:47] because EVs are the future. But in terms of the actual analysis of companies because there

[00:07:54] are some companies in there that produce E-POTH EVs and ICE vehicles we look at their policies

[00:08:00] that cut across all of their vehicles so in the way that we analyze EVs is specifically as more

[00:08:05] to do with how we select companies and then in there there are some companies like Tesla that

[00:08:09] only produces EVs and BYD that produces nearly only EVs only EVs and then others like Ford and GM

[00:08:15] which haven't made as much progress but are still starting to accelerate their transition

[00:08:19] and with the ones that produce both ICE vehicles and EVs we look at their policies

[00:08:24] that cut across both of those. Okay so and I'll give this one to Cecilia

[00:08:30] when you're looking at or when not to use specifically when the organization is looking at

[00:08:36] what kind of factors to evaluate and grade these companies on how are you that seems like a lot I

[00:08:43] read in the document there's like 80 different factors you're grading on. How are you A,

[00:08:50] getting the information is this self reporting from the automakers? Are you looking at their

[00:08:54] suppliers? How is that going into play because it's a very detailed document like an 83 page document

[00:09:02] and then you have another document that tells you how or tells people how they actually

[00:09:09] you know set up to grade this whole process so there's a lot that goes into this can you just

[00:09:15] give us a brief explanation of how that works. Yeah sure and to the rest feel free to dump

[00:09:21] and if I miss anything so basically we outsource the research to an independent group called Perk PIRC

[00:09:31] and they look at the criteria is to basically look at a material that has been

[00:09:37] board approved by the company basically so about to make sure that it's just a random

[00:09:43] press release or just around the announcement without any leadership backing at the company

[00:09:50] itself. Then once this first research is done according to all of these indicators as you as you

[00:09:57] said Boudie, we internally so they're each groups with the different expertise reviews a little bit

[00:10:03] be the analysis and they contribute based on our research and like what we see out in the world

[00:10:09] so for example at Transfer and Environment where experts on batteries we've worked extensively

[00:10:15] on battery regulation have engaged with companies in the automotive sector but also battery makers

[00:10:20] and mining companies so and recycling companies of course so we know what the state of the art is like

[00:10:26] so we are able to let's say fat check also on our end in case anything is missing

[00:10:32] from the work that Perk has done. Excellent one of the things that I found really interesting

[00:10:38] in the document was and the lead the charge document was that in Indonesia close to 49% of

[00:10:45] the world's nickel is made and processed there and in one industrial park in Indonesia the coal

[00:10:53] power capacity is equal to Mexico which I thought was insane just in one industrial park so

[00:11:00] there's definitely and then there's a bunch of other environmental factors that goes on there

[00:11:05] as well. There was some things in the document that talked about green steel or clean steel can

[00:11:12] you tell folks what clean steel is or green steel? I can start us off on clean steel and then yeah

[00:11:20] pass over to Catherine and Cecilia that have also been working on this so yeah I'd say just to

[00:11:27] start off that we prioritized three key supply chains so we're looking at steel, aluminum and batteries

[00:11:36] there's a bunch of different reasons for this on the first hand because they make up the most

[00:11:40] weight of the car so they're like very important components in particular of course for EVs.

[00:11:46] Secondly there was a very interesting study that came out that was commissioned by Polestar

[00:11:51] and Rivian that looked at supply chain emissions of electric vehicles and found that actually

[00:11:56] just these three components make up around 70% of the supply chain emissions of EVs so very important

[00:12:03] from a from to reduce these upstream scope three emissions of electric vehicles and then finally

[00:12:11] also because of the leverage that automakers have over these industries so when we lead the charge

[00:12:16] on the one hand it's a campaign about the electric vehicle and the automotive industry

[00:12:22] but really as well it's also about how can we use automakers and in particular the EV transition

[00:12:27] as a lever to push forward change on climate, environment and human rights issues on other

[00:12:33] industries and in particular these heavy industries steel, aluminum and batteries

[00:12:38] and when we look at steel and aluminum these are often called like hard-to-abate industries

[00:12:42] that have made very very little progress on decarbonizing and we think that a key

[00:12:47] piece of the puzzle that needs to be unlocked in order to incentivize these companies and these

[00:12:53] industries to accelerate their progress on decarbonization and introduce new technologies that

[00:12:58] will enable them to do that will be showing demand from their key customers so

[00:13:04] aluminum for example automakers are the largest consumer of aluminum in the world

[00:13:07] so the biggest customer of aluminum companies. When it comes to steel they are not the top

[00:13:12] but they are one of the most important consumers because they consume primarily

[00:13:17] high-grade expensive steel, high quality steel that is at the moment made in more made in

[00:13:26] blast venous powered by coal. So when we're talking about green steel here there's really

[00:13:32] we need when we're talking about the green steel that the automotive sector needs it's about

[00:13:37] finding new technologies that can help the that can allow the steel industry to transition

[00:13:42] away from these coal-powered blast venous and also meet the quality requirements that automakers

[00:13:52] and vehicles need from their steel suppliers. And so there's a few different routes to

[00:13:56] achieve this the most promising one at the moment and there's actually some very interesting

[00:14:01] announcements you may have seen this week from the Biden administration on this

[00:14:04] and I'll hand over to Catherine to talk more about that but is what's called a direct reduced

[00:14:10] iron process that can be fed with clean hydrogen and there was one project announced on this

[00:14:19] Swedish-based firm SSAB that will be actually building the first green steel facility in the

[00:14:25] US and yeah I'll hand over to Catherine to talk a little bit more about the US context on that

[00:14:28] front. One of the things I wanted to bring up echoing Chris was that as one of the largest

[00:14:36] consumers of steel the automotive industry has a responsibility to publicly declare that they have

[00:14:43] a commitment to buy the best steel out on the market and we are really pushing the steel

[00:14:50] industry to move forward with green steel. Right now the US government is investing and steel

[00:14:59] mills have the opportunity to retrofit their facilities with new equipment that would

[00:15:04] dramatically reduce and potentially eliminate fossil fuel usage entirely so this is a key moment

[00:15:09] for this industry to move forward on green steel and we are using lead the charge as a lever

[00:15:17] to make sure that steel mills are being leaders in the space and demonstrating this preference

[00:15:25] for climate friendly steel over metal that is available now in the market. So this is a key

[00:15:31] opportunity to be pushing forward and as Chris mentioned you know the buy-in administration is

[00:15:37] really showing that this is a priority for investment right now. That leads us to the

[00:15:42] human rights side of this which I don't think is covered as often and probably as it should be

[00:15:48] right now or not right now every year the sisters of the Good Shepherd it's an order of

[00:15:55] nuns they put forth a proposal at the Tesla shareholders meeting for Tesla to be more

[00:16:00] transparent when it comes to child labor and that's always shot down like always Tesla's board

[00:16:05] recommends against it and it's shot down I don't know how that survives the media but it does.

[00:16:13] Talk a little bit about the human rights when it comes to sourcing this material and making

[00:16:19] sure these automakers are sourcing responsibly. I can take that. So I think that well first of all

[00:16:31] we need to take a step back and look at as Catherine said this is a great opportunity

[00:16:36] to clean up supply chains right as we transition to electric vehicles but these problems they're

[00:16:41] not unique to the electric vehicle supply chain but they are for all extractive industries

[00:16:48] right so you know that the province of human rights abuses let's say that I

[00:16:53] represent heavily in fossil fuel industry and the fossil fuel supply chains.

[00:16:58] So now there is this unique opportunity and we're seeing for example here in the EU

[00:17:04] with new laws coming in to actually improve disclosure but also accountability of companies

[00:17:12] as to what happens in their supply chains and I mean an example of a law that I've worked on is

[00:17:18] the European battery regulation which basically mandates in very simple terms it mandates companies

[00:17:25] that are placing batteries on the European market to make sure that their supply chains are free

[00:17:31] of human rights abuses including child labor but also forced labor and environmental abuses

[00:17:38] so companies will have to demonstrate that these things are not present in their supply chains.

[00:17:43] This is massive because it impacts the supply chains of cobalt, nickel, lithium and graphite

[00:17:50] but to really make this work at a global scale we also need other geographies such as the US

[00:17:58] such as South Korea, Japan, other leading EV markets to take up similar laws to really have

[00:18:05] an impact globally on automotive supply chains. So progress is being made and I think companies

[00:18:13] are doing quite a lot and that's why we all rank human and if you compare the rankings from last

[00:18:18] year to this year especially Chinese automakers for example they are making some progress on

[00:18:24] human rights indicators but it's not enough because all of them on average they're below

[00:18:30] 50% so there's still a lot they can do. Yeah and I do want to chat about that in a second but

[00:18:39] talking about the battery sourcing material and recycling in the report it says that only 5%

[00:18:44] right now of batteries are being recycled and everything else is you know going through this

[00:18:49] pyro-metrology or hydro-metrology processes can can you talk about that a little bit that

[00:18:58] I was under the impression that we were ramping up all these recycling centers so that we wouldn't

[00:19:03] have to have these problems but evidently not. Well I can talk like Brogni and then maybe Catherine

[00:19:10] or Chris can talk about that the less context but so the good news is that batteries and EV

[00:19:17] vehicles they're lasting longer than we originally thought right so they're staying on the road

[00:19:22] longer and then we're exploring all of these opportunities around a secondary life so how

[00:19:27] can we still reuse these batteries so what's happening or what will happen is that the the

[00:19:33] biggest chunk of these batteries will come in to be recycled towards the end of this decade

[00:19:40] early 2030s basically so as we said there's a window of opportunity right now to build

[00:19:48] good recycling industry in Europe and in the case of transfer environment so where I'm

[00:19:53] based right we want to see this happen in Europe but also elsewhere to really push for those

[00:20:00] yeah to really have a more circular ecosystem to drive down demand from primary mining

[00:20:07] but as you rightly pointed out there's there are different ways of recycling and today a lot of

[00:20:13] them they're they're based on you know um very energy consuming we also have fossil fuel as

[00:20:18] part of their um the methods and most of it goes to Asia so there is that opportunity but we need to

[00:20:25] be quick about it with strong industrial policy Catherine do you have anything to add on that

[00:20:30] it's similar in the United States the Biden administration has made this a priority and

[00:20:35] is really studying how to make this a circular economy um and and also some states um New Jersey

[00:20:43] for example just recently um passed a a standard to push forward and make sure that we are looking at

[00:20:53] EV battery recycling um and so I think these are these are key moments to be ensuring that we have

[00:21:01] the infrastructure to um as Cecilia said making sure that these are recycled properly um to reduce

[00:21:11] the need for additional mining um and I think we have some time before um we sorry I think we

[00:21:21] have some time to um make progress but this is a key priority for the space

[00:21:29] excellent um so let's talk about the automakers in general uh of the 18 automakers Cecilia

[00:21:37] mentioned this no one had to score over 50 percent which leaves a lot of room for improvement but

[00:21:44] the automakers did score full marks some automakers scored full marks in certain areas

[00:21:50] is there a world where these automakers can work together and improve their scores

[00:21:57] so I could take this on um I think that would be an ideal world so I think one of the you

[00:22:02] mentioned one of the most interesting findings of the the leaderboard analysis this year was that if

[00:22:08] you look at the level of individual automakers um they're doing pretty poorly across the board um

[00:22:15] there's definitely been uh momentum and uh signs of improvement from some automakers some more

[00:22:21] dramatic than others such as in particular this year we saw uh significant improvements for by

[00:22:26] US automakers such as Tesla Ford and NGM but none of them have now even reached the 50 percent part

[00:22:34] 50 percent mark and when I just to give a little bit of context of what we mean about

[00:22:38] automakers meeting 50 percent or 100 percent what this uh what this leaderboard analysis

[00:22:44] does is it looks at both what companies say they want to do so it looks at companies targets

[00:22:50] commitments policies and so on but it also looks at concrete evidence of their progress

[00:22:56] towards meeting these targets commitments um and uh and policies so it also looks at implementation as well

[00:23:03] and um specifically the the benchmarks are aligned with international benchmarks so on the climate side

[00:23:09] for example we're looking at whether automakers are driving forward uh they're setting targets and

[00:23:14] then drive and taking action to drive forward the decarbonization of their supply chain in a

[00:23:19] way that's aligned with a 1.35 degree pathway and then on the human right side for example

[00:23:24] we're looking at international human rights standards and frameworks and the and the seeing

[00:23:29] whether automakers are committing to them and then taking action uh to fulfill those commitments

[00:23:34] so when it comes to to doing that they're not they have not a single automaker is

[00:23:38] past the 50 percent mark but at where then actually when you look at the industry as a whole

[00:23:43] and one analysis we did was to look at the best score against every single indicator and then

[00:23:48] sum up all of those best scores and that leads to a score actually of over 70 percent so that

[00:23:54] basically what that means is that if an automaker wanted to dramatically increase its score

[00:24:00] and improve its performance across all of these different areas all it would need to do

[00:24:04] to get to a score of 70 percent is to um is to look at what its competitors who are

[00:24:10] leading on those particular issues are doing so for example Volvo at the moment is the leader

[00:24:15] on clean steel and aluminum and is doing a lot of very interesting things on that signing purchasing

[00:24:20] agreement setting very ambitious targets doing a lot of work around steel aluminum and recycling

[00:24:25] and so they could be an automaker to look to um if an automaker if another automaker wanted

[00:24:31] to improve its score on that when it comes to human rights for example Ford is doing particularly

[00:24:35] well when it comes to responsible transition mineral sourcing so automate another automaker

[00:24:40] could look to Ford for inspiration on what it could do about that specifically um and then that

[00:24:47] also leaves the question of course about what about this final 30 percent and that's really where

[00:24:51] we're going to need leading automakers to step up and show innovation and do things that no one

[00:24:56] else in the auto industry has done before them and they're a really good example this year

[00:25:02] was actually came from Tesla so one of the the indicators that we measure automakers against

[00:25:09] is around disclosure and calculations of their scope three emissions and then specifically

[00:25:15] their upstream scope three emissions that come from their supply chain and so we have a general

[00:25:20] indicator that looks at whether automakers calculate this for their supply chain overall

[00:25:24] and that's where quite a few automakers have made progress but we think that if automakers

[00:25:29] really want to get serious about tackling emissions from their steel aluminum and battery

[00:25:33] supply chain specifically then they need to be calculating exactly how much emissions are coming

[00:25:38] from each of those supply chain and disclosed to segregated emissions so say that this is how much

[00:25:44] emissions come from our steel supply chain this is how much emissions come from our batteries

[00:25:47] and this is how much steel emissions come from our aluminum and really only with that that they'll

[00:25:52] be able to measure how effectively their progress making progress towards decarbonizing these

[00:25:57] supply chains and in 2022 not a single automaker had done that it was everyone's called zero

[00:26:04] across the board this year Tesla became the first automaker to provide that level of disclosure with

[00:26:09] regards to their scope three emissions and so now they are the leader in that space that other

[00:26:14] automakers can be looking towards so it's examples like this which will help us to close that 70

[00:26:20] percent and hopefully in the upcoming years get all the way up to 100 percent in terms of

[00:26:25] at least one automaker fully meeting all of the indicators.

[00:26:29] Yeah recently Tesla and I'm fuzzy on the details so don't quote me on this 100 percent

[00:26:36] but they basically set up like a blockchain for supply chain to report this stuff and GM signed

[00:26:43] on and one other major automaker signed on do you think this is due to the leader board report

[00:26:49] or how I guess a better question would be how are automakers reacting to this report are

[00:26:57] they are they working with you on this are they looking at it how do you know how are you getting

[00:27:03] feedback. Yeah this is a great question buddy and and this is probably the thing that is

[00:27:10] most exciting about this coalition space we are engaging with many of the manufacturers we are

[00:27:19] sending the preliminary findings of the study to each manufacturer we've developed

[00:27:28] relationships with many of the manufacturers and are sending them findings in advance

[00:27:34] meeting with them getting feedback and making sure that they are really taking this opportunity

[00:27:41] to discuss what we're finding and what the entire industry is moving towards.

[00:27:47] Many of these conversations have been really helpful for sharing information that we're finding

[00:27:53] in the industry best practices and so this is a great way that we are seeing a lot of movement

[00:28:02] and and I think this is the best way to indicate progress as Chris was saying we are

[00:28:10] because this is this is kind of the first time that some of these teams are having these

[00:28:15] discussions together meeting with a variety of different groups that have an interest in the

[00:28:20] supply chain and overall automotive industry I think we're really coming to coming to the table

[00:28:28] was really helpful information and we're seeing the progress of that. Cecilia did you have something

[00:28:34] to add to that? I thought I saw you wanted to talk. No maybe I want to expand on the

[00:28:41] example you brought in on the blockchain because it's also one of my areas of work so

[00:28:47] basically for people that are listening this is a way to track and trace minerals or other

[00:28:55] things in the supply chains of automakers in something that happens in the cloud whatever that

[00:29:02] is and basically this is a very useful technology to provide us with movements right

[00:29:12] the geographical indication of other given let's say for example of lithium that it's being sourced

[00:29:18] from Chile and then goes to China for processing and in a battery cell and then the battery

[00:29:25] is made in Europe so we know where this is going and but what I want to highlight maybe to the

[00:29:32] those that are listening is that these technologies alone aren't enough and that's why you also need

[00:29:38] things like the lead the charge report another great work that NGOs around the world are doing

[00:29:44] to show or indicate you know what other things are happening for example in Chile

[00:29:52] or in China or in Europe around that factory because this is what a so-called due diligence

[00:29:57] process is about and that companies on the other hand shouldn't just rely on that geographical

[00:30:04] indicator that track and trace system but also interview different types of stakeholders from

[00:30:09] workers for example to impacted communities. Yeah and we should say if anybody doesn't

[00:30:16] know what a blockchain is it's basically a ledger like people used to have check books

[00:30:21] and they would write down everything they spent and they could write a note.

[00:30:25] This is not a tech podcast but I feel confident that most of the folks know what a blockchain is

[00:30:33] but in the off chance they don't. I'm going to each of you have your own separate discipline so

[00:30:38] I'm gonna start with Catherine and I want to end on a positive here not on a negative but

[00:30:45] Cecilia do you want to where do you feel in your discipline and what you

[00:30:49] cover how can automakers improve? Yeah so in the next couple of years

[00:30:58] so earlier in the podcast they mentioned a couple of ERPN laws that have now entered into force

[00:31:05] but as of next year mid-2025 we'll see these rules go into force so automakers right now

[00:31:13] they are preparing to meet these requirements on environmental and human rights sustainability

[00:31:19] so it's an incredibly fascinating moment a really important moment to see how will they

[00:31:27] implement these rules and how will they make positive change happen on the ground working

[00:31:34] in collaboration with those suppliers because this is something that we've mentioned a lot but

[00:31:39] it's super important automakers need to work with their suppliers to better understand their

[00:31:45] supply chains the impacts that they're having and earlier in podcast you mentioned nickel

[00:31:51] voted for instance so nickel mining has a huge impact on biodiversity and biodiversity is one

[00:31:57] of the things that automakers are being asked to look at under this new european battery law

[00:32:04] so how so they're right they will have to assess the biodiversity impact monitor it but most

[00:32:12] importantly mitigate it so that to me is with the positive story that i'm looking forward to

[00:32:20] excellent how about you chris yeah so i would hone in on on two one where i think there's

[00:32:26] already a lot of momentum which has been very encouraging to see and another where

[00:32:31] there's a lot of work to do and but and i think a lot of opportunity for improvement

[00:32:37] so the first one is around automakers starting to use their leverage in order to

[00:32:43] support the decarbonization of the steel and aluminum industries so in the first year of

[00:32:49] the leaderboard which we published a back in 2022 this was basically a non-existent issue for

[00:32:56] the auto industry and for EV manufacturers as well so we saw that over around three quarters of the

[00:33:06] of the automakers that we evaluated scored zero on all of those indicators

[00:33:11] and this year actually the story about that has flipped so now the automakers who

[00:33:18] aren't doing anything with regards to taking action to decarbonize steel and aluminum supply

[00:33:23] chains now in the minority and around two-thirds of automakers on steel at least and and on aluminum

[00:33:30] actually a little bit less have started to at least take initial actions on decarbonizing

[00:33:36] the steel and aluminum industries so now we're starting to see real momentum on this issue

[00:33:42] and what we'd really like to see moving forward is is automakers sending very strong public

[00:33:47] demand signals to the steel and aluminum industries that tell them that the way that the

[00:33:52] auto industry is going in the future and the way that EVs will be built in the future

[00:33:56] is with fossil-free steel and aluminum how can they send those demand signals there's a lot of

[00:34:01] things they can do they can use their voice speak up publicly in forums tell their steel and

[00:34:05] aluminum suppliers that we're moving towards green steel and green aluminum if you can't keep

[00:34:11] up we will drop you as suppliers they can send demand signals with regards to how much steel and

[00:34:18] aluminum they want to buy so they could set targets for example with regards to that we want to supply

[00:34:24] x quantity of near zero emission steel aluminum by 2030 there are some multi-stake very interesting

[00:34:31] multi-stakeholder initiatives that are actually allowing automakers to come together and other

[00:34:36] downstream buyers to come together to send these demand signals and bring them together

[00:34:40] and send a collective signal to these industries so for example there's steel zero the first movers

[00:34:45] coalition by the world economic forum has groups on steel and aluminum and in the us as well rmi

[00:34:52] has recently put together a purchasing platform where steel and aluminum where downstream buyers

[00:34:58] can come together and help to get to use their buying power purchasing power to help get these

[00:35:05] facilities built and then that brings me down to the third point which we also really want to see

[00:35:11] automakers working directly with suppliers to help unlock investments in new facilities or in

[00:35:19] relining or upgrading existing facilities that require huge huge investments and for those

[00:35:26] investments to be to become a reality investors need to have the confidence that the demand

[00:35:31] will be there and so one way that automakers can do this and that they've started to do is to

[00:35:35] sign offtake or advance purchase agreements directly with facilities so for example just to give one

[00:35:41] example Volvo has signed an agreement with a facility in sweden that isn't even operational

[00:35:46] yet called the hybrid facility by ssab basically says that they will start buying

[00:35:51] the steel as soon as it's ready as soon as it'll be made available and that's the kind of

[00:35:55] agreements that we want to be seeing moving forward and then the second area I would say

[00:36:00] which has been very disappointing area of the leaderboard so far but is one where I'm hoping

[00:36:04] to we're hoping to see more improvement is around the issue of indigenous people's rights and so

[00:36:09] there it's a it is kind of like where steel and aluminum was last year but it continues to be

[00:36:14] there and that it's a very pretty much a non-existent issue for most of automakers but

[00:36:18] this is going to be so crucial to address as the EV as the transition accelerates because around

[00:36:25] 50% of the minerals that we need for the energy transition are located on or near indigenous

[00:36:31] people's territories and so it's fundamental that automakers start taking action to ensure that

[00:36:36] their suppliers who are getting these minerals are respecting the self-determination of indigenous

[00:36:41] peoples and at the moment around 70% of automakers score zero on indigenous people's rights

[00:36:46] there's some sort of glimmers of hope for example tesla made some very interesting progress

[00:36:51] this year on indigenous people's rights and some of their policies and practices but there's still a

[00:36:56] long way to go and we are hopeful to see progress on this next year as we're some members of lead

[00:37:01] the charge are engaging directly with automakers holding workshops and providing advice on how

[00:37:07] to build stronger indigenous rights policies and processes to uphold those policies so

[00:37:13] we're hopeful that this this all of this work will start bearing fruit next year.

[00:37:19] Excellent thank you Chris and then Catherine same question where do you see need for improvement

[00:37:27] and then what are you hopeful about in 2024? Yeah so there's there's a couple things I wanted to

[00:37:32] raise here um so in the US there were some newly adopted federal vehicle emissions standards

[00:37:38] that were just announced last week these are long-term standards that are requiring

[00:37:43] automakers to make cleaner cars and this will help ensure that car manufacturers are actually

[00:37:48] improving their scores when it comes to manufacturing more electric vehicles. This is also coupled with

[00:37:57] 13 states plus DC have stronger standards than the federal government so we'll be seeing even

[00:38:04] more electric vehicles in those states and that will help the overall score for electric vehicles.

[00:38:12] The other thing I wanted to mention which was quite historic this week was that the Department of Energy

[00:38:19] announced funding it was six billion dollars which is the largest investment in industrial

[00:38:25] decarbonization in history here in the US. This funding came from the bipartisan infrastructure

[00:38:32] law and the inflation reduction act and we're seeing a number of projects that will get funded

[00:38:37] specifically to reduce emissions around the production of aluminum and steel and so this is

[00:38:43] quite exciting for our work because we know that a cleaner supply chain is on the horizon.

[00:38:52] Excellent excellent I don't normally at the end I let everybody plug something

[00:38:56] I don't know that plug is the right word here so if someone wants to find you Catherine

[00:39:01] or wants to learn more about what the Sierra Club is doing where would they go or even lead the charge?

[00:39:10] Yeah for Sierra Club specifically they can go to our website crclub.org and learn about the

[00:39:15] clean transportation work that we're doing and as well as the industrial decarbonization work

[00:39:19] we're doing there are multiple teams that I work closely with and then for lead the charge

[00:39:25] check out the lead the charge leaderboard and a lot of really great content there.

[00:39:31] Excellent and how about you Cecilia? We can check out Transfer and Environment on social media so

[00:39:37] LinkedIn, X, Mamie but also Instagram and of course our website to learn about not just cars

[00:39:45] but all their cool stuff such as aviation and shipping. Okay and what's the website?

[00:39:51] TransferandBioment.org. Got it thank you and how about you Chris?

[00:39:58] So the Sunrise project have our website as well sunriseproject.org but yeah I'd really

[00:40:04] encourage people to check out the lead the charge website which is leadthecharge.org

[00:40:10] and yeah have a look through the leaderboard have a look through some of the solutions we're

[00:40:14] proposing that are being implemented already so they are feasible and yeah and really help

[00:40:20] us to send these messages to the auto industry about using their leverage to help

[00:40:26] address these issues across steel, aluminum and battery. Excellent well thank you all for

[00:40:32] coming in and joining us I really appreciate it I think this was very informative and hopefully

[00:40:37] next year if you enjoyed yourself this time you'll come in next year and give us an update.

[00:40:43] All right that was a great interview I would like to thank Catherine, Cecilia and Chris for

[00:40:48] coming on and being so generous with their time. I learned a lot from this interview and I hope you

[00:40:53] learned a lot as well if you would like more information on what they're doing I'll put links

[00:40:59] in the show notes to their respective organizations and I will also put a link to

[00:41:06] lead the charge as well in the show notes so you can go and look that up I would highly

[00:41:10] encourage you to do it like I said in the intro there is a lot of information on there so

[00:41:14] if you're curious about this stuff and I know we have people that listen to the show that are

[00:41:19] curious about this stuff go check it out for sure.

[00:41:45] I'm trying to pretend that I don't.

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[00:45:06] All right everybody that is it for me this week if you would like to email me it's Bodee

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