Manufacturing

Ford's manufacturing management sets environmental targets annually for all of our facilities. We develop these targets through a comprehensive process that considers past performance, future regulation trends, environmental technology advances, financial conditions and other relevant factors. The global targets are then translated into regional- and facility-level targets, which differ depending on the relevant regulations and financial and production constraints in each region. Within our powertrain operations, for example, goals are set by determining the highest-performing powertrain plant for each environmental performance metric. Then each "best-in-class" plant's performance becomes the new goal that every powertrain plant is required to meet.

In 2005, we began to implement an Environmental Operating System (EOS) at our North American assembly plants. As a counterpart to our Quality Operating System, the EOS provides a standardized, streamlined approach to maintaining compliance with all legal and Ford internal requirements. The EOS drives compliance responsibility to the operations level by assigning compliance-related tasks to the appropriate personnel and tracking the completion of those tasks.

The EOS is integrated with other key management systems at the plant level, including ISO 14001. The EOS provides information, standardized tools and processes to support the ISO 14001 requirement to identify and manage compliance issues. The EOS has been fully implemented throughout U.S. and Canadian manufacturing operations, and is currently being implemented in the rest of our global operations.

Ford has moved to group ISO 14001 certification for its plants in North America. All powertrain plants share a single group certification. Likewise, assembly plants, stamping plants, Ford Customer Service Division facilities and South American plants each have their own group certification. Instead of being audited yearly by a third party, each plant is now audited every three years. Group certification saves time and money, with no degradation in plant environmental performance.

In 2007, we implemented the Global Emissions Manager database (GEM), which provides a globally consistent approach for measuring and monitoring environmental data. This system helps us track our efforts to reduce water consumption, energy use, carbon dioxide emissions and the amount of waste sent to landfill. The data GEM provides and the level of analysis it allows also helps us set more effective environmental management targets and develop more specific strategies for improving environmental performance. We are continuing to add metrics and tracking systems to GEM to further enhance our environmental management objectives.