Ford’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions

We estimate that annual carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from Ford facilities and Ford vehicles driven by our customers are in the range of 350–400 million metric tons (Mmt) per year, varying over time with fluctuations in vehicle production and sales, on-road fleet size and vehicle miles traveled. The estimate includes emissions from our facilities, emissions from current-year vehicles and emissions from all Ford vehicles on the road.

We updated this estimate of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from our facilities and Ford vehicles in 2010, using data from 2008, the most recently available. The estimate is shown in Figure 1, along with the estimates carried out in 2001 and 2006/7 for the years 1999 and 2005, respectively.

Please note that while we can exercise a significant degree of ongoing control over our facility emissions, we have essentially no control over the emissions of vehicles once they are produced and placed in service on the road.

Our assessment of the emissions from Ford’s facilities and Ford-made vehicles on the road decreased between 2005 and 2008 from approximately 400 to 350 million metric tons of CO₂, primarily due to better data availability for a key parameter.¹ Normalizing for the change in the key parameter, the emissions remained relatively stable at approximately 350 Mmt. Recognizing the inherent uncertainties in these estimations, we plan to update the assessments approximately every five years. We currently plan to conduct our next assessment in 2015.

Figure 1: Estimate of CO₂ Emissions From Our Facilities and Vehicles on the Road in 2008, 2005 and 1999

In detail, the updated 2010 snapshot of estimated CO₂² emissions shows that, between 2005 and 2008:

• Emissions from our facilities improved by approximately 38 percent. This reflects an approximately 16 percent improvement in the amount of CO₂ emitted per vehicle produced (i.e., our energy-efficiency index improved globally by about 16 percent from 2005 to 2008). It also reflects lower overall vehicle production. These estimates are fairly precise.³ Facility GHG emissions, however, are a small percentage (about 2 percent) of the total.
• Emissions from calendar year 2008⁴ vehicles on the road decreased by about 22 percent relative to the prior year, primarily reflecting a decline in vehicle sales. We have moderate confidence in the precision of the estimate for U.S. vehicles; the estimate for the rest of the world is less precise.⁵ These emissions account for about 8 percent of the total.
• Emissions from all Ford vehicles on the road are estimated to be about 308 million metric tons of CO₂ per year, lower than in our previous analyses, primarily due to better data availability for a key parameter. This estimate, which accounts for about 90 percent of the total, remains highly uncertain.⁶

Outside the scope of this estimate, we are also in the process of understanding the GHG emissions from our key suppliers’ facilities. And, we are expanding our approach to enhance supplier environmental performance beyond more-established supplier environmental performance expectations such as robust environmental management systems (ISO 14001 certification) and responsible materials management. (See the Supplier Greenhouse Gas Emissions section for details of our participation in initial efforts to assess GHG emissions in our supply chain.)