Eight Steps for Managing Green Innovation in the Automotive Industry

Magazine article, 2013

There are approximately 1 billion automobiles in the world. In 2012, world production went above 84 million vehicles. With the increasing global demand for cars, it is estimated that there will be 2 billion of them by 2020. In fact, with 10 billion people living on Planet Earth by 2050, we could have around 6 billion cars registered if developing countries follow the same patterns of mobility and car ownership as the USA and Europe. When Henry Ford’s assembly line was aimed at producing for mass market, his philosophical drivers included personal mobility and freedom. For 100 years, cars could deliver this – and they still do in many of the World’s newly industrialised nations. However, nowadays cars are no longer synonymous with personal mobility and freedom. For people living in megacities (think of São Paulo, Tokyo, and Jakarta) the use of automobiles is not only reducing personal mobility and freedom but is also a reason for poor urban air quality, fatal accidents and increasing concerns about end-of-life waste and landfill availability. The question of “greening” the automotive industry no longer has a “yes or no” answer. The debate has moved on from “why” to “how” and “by when”, such that the greening innovations support other business conditions including profitability, customer satisfaction, product safety, and reliability.