Our Value Chain and Its Impacts

This stage has far-reaching impacts throughout our value chain, as it includes all major decisions about which products we will make, what technologies we will develop and implement, and how and where our products will be made.

Innovation and R&D play a key role in our ability to enhance positive impacts and reduce negative impacts of our products and operations. We also add indirect value and have indirect impacts at this stage based on the decisions we make about products, manufacturing processes, manufacturing volumes, suppliers, etc.

This stage can have significant impacts on the communities where extraction occurs. Extraction creates value for raw material suppliers and local communities through employment and other benefits.

However, it also has significant environmental and social impacts on local communities. We are working to reduce negative impacts from extraction, including addressing issues relating to Conflict Minerals, human trafficking and rare earth elements.

This stage includes the transport of parts from our suppliers to our manufacturing plants and of finished vehicles from our factories to our dealerships.

We create value at this stage by providing business and jobs in the transportation and packaging industries. We also work to reduce emissions and waste associated with parts transportation and packaging. However, transportation causes impacts to local communities and the environment, especially in the areas of emissions, waste, traffic and road safety.

Supplier parts manufacturing includes our direct suppliers as well as multiple levels of suppliers who provide components to our direct suppliers.

We add value at this stage by providing business to suppliers, which in turn creates jobs, income and investment in communities. We also add value through extensive efforts to improve the sustainability of our suppliers’ operations. We also generate indirect impacts at this stage, primarily in the form of environmental impacts of parts manufacturing and social and economic impacts to local communities based on changes in our supplier base and production levels.

Manufacturing at our own facilities is the heart of our business and is, of course, the value chain stage where we create the most direct value and impacts.

We create value at this stage through employment and investment in the communities where we operate, and through continual efforts to improve the environmental performance of our operations and to ensure human rights and excellent working conditions for our own employees. Our impacts at this stage include the environmental impacts of our manufacturing facilities, as well as the social and economic impacts of our plant operations.

The sales stage includes our communications with customers about our products and the work of our global dealer network.

We add value at this stage by providing customers with products that meet their needs and exceed their expectations, and through the employment and investment generated by our dealerships.

Most of the direct value and impacts of our products occur during the use stage, when they are being driven by our customers.

We add value at this stage by delivering high-quality, fuel-efficient products that make our customers’ lives better. We generate indirect value by supporting the vast network of businesses that benefit from vehicle use – from fuel providers and road builders to less-obvious beneficiaries such as the travel and tourism industry. We generate impacts through the environmental and social impacts of our vehicles, including tailpipe emissions and vehicle and road safety.

Our dealer network creates value and impacts through their network of vehicle service centers.

We generate direct value at this stage through the employment and investment of dealership service centers, and by working to reduce the environmental impacts of our service processes, such as recycling used parts. We add indirect value by generating demand for replacement parts and other support services, which in turn provide employment and economic benefits.

Our vehicles have impacts and value even after they are done with their useful driving life.

We generate indirect value at this stage by supporting the vehicle dismantling, recycling and disposal industries. (Ninety-five percent of the materials in our vehicles can be recycled or reused.) Our vehicles also have impacts at end of life primarily in the form of waste production.