Sheryl Connelly – Ford Motor Company

In my job, we track hundreds of trends. One key trend is what we call "ethical consumption." Environmental and social issues are becoming much more mainstream. People are finally taking action in the marketplace, doing things like purchasing organic produce.

David Duesterberg – Johnson Controls, Inc.

Johnson Controls has been working with Ford on sustainability opportunities for a number of years. It became clear that both companies were advancing the same goals of improved supplier ethics and enhanced working conditions.

Derrick Kuzak – Ford Motor Company

Climate change is no longer something we speculate about. It's very real. Ford, and the entire industry, must be active in addressing the concerns. In fact, we are obligated to participate – from a customer perspective, from a business perspective and from a societal perspective.

Sean McAlinden – Center for Automotive Research

There are essentially two world auto industries: a North American industry, which prefers trucks like the Ford F-150, and the rest of the planet, which prefers to drive sub-compact, high fuel-economy cars.

Ian Olson – Ford Motor Company

One thing that I find frustrating is the idea that sustainability is a fourth pillar of supply chain management – something distinct and separate from price and quality and delivery. This view shortchanges sustainability, since sustainability is very much encompassed within all three realms. We need to take a more holistic view.

Susan Rokosz – Ford Motor Company

The change at Ford over sustainability has been truly remarkable. When I first started at Ford 25 years ago, environmental efforts were mostly focused on compliance. "Sustainability" was a word that had yet to be coined.

Ingrid Skogsmo – Volvo Car Corporation

The so-called safety divide is one of the major challenges automakers face as vehicle access and use continue to soar across the developing world.

Eric Wingfield – Ford Motor Company

For an issue as large as sustainability, everybody has a different vantage point and a different opinion. Ford's Systems Thinking Program Management Office (STPMO), where I work, uses a systems-thinking approach to bridge disparate views around the Company on issues like quality, the recent downsizing efforts and sustainability. In systems thinking, we look at long-term issues in a holistic way to find where and what we could do to impact long-term change while minimizing the unintended consequences in the short term.

Susan Zielinski – University of Michigan

The more urbanized the world becomes – and we're heading toward two-thirds of the planet's population living in and around cities – the more we need to rethink how we get around. So transportation systems are becoming more sophisticated, more innovative, more multi-faceted and better connected in response to this urbanizing trend. There are other factors driving these changes as well, namely a growing aging population, increasing economic disparities and, of course, climate change.