Sustainability is a big topic in business today. It asks not only what a company makes and how well it makes it, but also how it impacts the earth. To that end, we are pleased to see Audi take the top prize in a recent study conducted among German consumers. As Audi is headquartered in Germany and operates its multinational presence from there, it is fitting that the people closest to it can most accurately judge its activities.
But it was not only Audi being judged—BMW and Hipp, a maker of baby food, were the number two and three ranked companies this year. The study, Facit Research’s Sustainability Image Score 2014, was conducted by considering ecological, economic and social sustainability. Thus, not only was the environment considered but the fiscal and relational aspects of the companies, as well.
Taking these in reverse order, social sustainability concerns Audi as an employer—how does it treat its employees? Do they stay long in their jobs? Does Audi create or hinder job growth? Do young people have a place at Audi?
For economics, companies were considered on the basis of how well they interacted in the broader community of businesses. Questions here would be—how does Audi act toward competitors? How do its suppliers feel about Audi? Now that the vast troves of data that companies routinely acquire about its consumer base are coming under public scrutiny, how does Audi handle that information?
And finally the ecological. This is what people think of most when they see the phrase “sustainable development.” This considers natural resources used in the production of products, as well as the environmental impact of the plants, factories and assembly of the products. Apropos to this, Audi just signed a new agreement with South Korean company LG for tens of thousands of batteries for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in the future.
PHEV’s will go a long way toward reducing the environmental impact of automobiles on the planet, and the more PHEVs are produced, the lower their cost to consumers will be. A customer on the scale of Audi will create huge demand for the batteries that go into PHEVs and should enable LG to reduce the price, thus allowing other companies to also more feasibly build PHEVs.
As a whole, we are delighted to see Audi’s efforts to conduct itself with honor toward the earth recognized.