Materiality Analysis

For its 2008/9 Sustainability Report, Ford conducted a streamlined update of its materiality analysis, adding key inputs (such as the December 2008 Report to Congress), replacing outdated inputs and gathering feedback from internal experts and the Ceres Stakeholder Committee.

The results are largely similar to the previous analysis. Two groups of material issues – those pertaining to Ford's financial viability and climate change/fuel economy – would have moved up in priority to Ford and stakeholders if they were not already at the highest level.

However, some new issues emerged, some dropped out and others were recast or reorganized. Changes to the most material issues (upper-right part of the materiality matrix) included the following:

• In the financial viability grouping, labor costs, access to capital, the threat of competitor bankruptcy, and dealer and supplier viability were added as new issues.
• In the climate change grouping, low-carbon fuels replaced "clean/alternative fuels," reflecting a sharper focus on the life-cycle carbon emissions of fuels. Ford's electrification strategy was added as an issue, and emissions trading/cost of carbon emerged as a separate issue formerly subsumed within the low-carbon strategy issue.
• Urban mobility was added as an issue under mobility and emerging markets, as the unique characteristics of urban areas present challenges for traditional models of personal mobility and opportunities to develop new products and services.

Other changes included the addition of health care reform as a public policy issue and hazardous pollutants as an operational environmental issue, and a higher level of importance to Ford assigned to the congestion issue.

We have used this analysis to identify issues to cover in our reporting and as an input to our sustainability strategy development.

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