Reporting and Transparency

External reporting is a fundamental element of accountability. Sustainability reporting not only demonstrates transparency but, in our view, is the basis of organizational learning, demonstrates our values, and both reflects and drives outstanding economic, environmental and social performance. The following are central elements of our reporting strategy.

Materiality

Over the last several years, Ford has sought to continually refine its sustainability reporting to increase its materiality and responsiveness to stakeholders. A key part of our reporting strategy has been the development of a materiality analysis process, which has been a critical tool in helping shape the content of this report. The analysis, which we have conducted every other year, was carried out most recently in late 2006 and early 2007. It provided a tool to focus our 2006/7 and 2007/8 print reports on those issues determined to be most material to Ford over a three-to-five-year time horizon. At the same time, this comprehensive, Web-based report provides information on a broad range of other sustainability issues of importance to Ford and our stakeholders. The Web report also includes detailed performance data, case studies, stakeholder interviews and other supporting information.

Assurance

In recent years, Ford has employed various external assurance models in an effort to ensure the report's thoroughness, transparency and utility to stakeholders. For our 2004/5 report, we worked with Ceres and SustainAbility to create a Report Review Committee made up of 13 external stakeholders who advised us on the development of the report. Their feedback on our process and on the content of the report itself was included in the report.

For our 2005/6 and 2006/7 reports and again for the current report, Ceres convened Stakeholder Committees to advise us. The committee reviewing this report met twice: once to review and comment on the report outline, and once to review and comment on a nearly final draft of the report. The process is similar to the one we undertook for our 2004/5 report, though streamlined to include fewer meetings, as well as to have those meetings take place by teleconference, rather than in person. In this report we have responded to several suggestions of the Ceres Stakeholder Committee, notably in the publication of our CO2 reduction target and a detailed roadmap for achieving it.

Some of the data in our reports has been subject to various forms of internal and third-party verification. We have explored but not yet pursued third-party verification of all of the data in the report.

External Guidelines

Ford's 2002 through 2005/6 reports were produced "in accordance" with the 2002 Sustainability Reporting Guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI). In 2006, the GRI issued updated guidelines, called G3. Ford supported and participated in the development of the process that produced the updated guidelines. Ford's 2006/7 report was aligned with the G3 guidelines at a self-declared application level of A+, with the "A" being the most comprehensive level of reporting and the "+"indicating that the report has received external assurance. (See the Global Reporting Initiative Web site for more information on GRI and the application levels.)

Since the publication of the 2006/7 report, we have learned more about the rapidly evolving field of sustainability report assurance and GRI's expectations for assurance processes that qualify for a "+". We are not declaring the current report to be third-party assured and, based on our improved understanding, would not have done so for the 2006/7 report.

Targeted Reporting

Linked with our efforts to increase the materiality of our reporting, Ford has also taken steps to produce more targeted audience-, location- and subject-specific sustainability communications. For example, we have issued subject-specific reports on climate change and HIV/AIDS.

Also, several Ford facilities, brands and country operations produce their own reports detailing the sustainability issues they face within their particular regions or operations. For example, Volvo publishes an annual sustainability report. Several of our country operations, such as Ford China, and local facilities also produce public reports. We have also provided input to the Ceres Facility Reporting Project.

Because employees are a key audience for our report, we have developed a sustainability intranet site to provide them with more tailored information. We have also identified mainstream and socially responsible investors as an important target audience and, in the future, we intend to develop sustainability communications tailored to their particular information needs. As a first step in this direction, we are working to more closely align the publication of our Sustainability Report with that of our Annual Report, so that we are providing investors – as well as other stakeholders – with complete information on the economic, social and environmental performance of our Company at one time.

Benchmarking and External Feedback

Ford seeks formal and informal feedback on our Sustainability Report from a number of organizations with expertise in reporting. For example, we asked SustainAbility to review our 2006/7 report according to their and the United Nations Environment Program's benchmarking methodology. A summary of the benchmarking findings, which were consistent with other feedback we received, can be found in Downloads.

Ford also commissioned SustainAbility to gather and analyze report feedback from Ford stakeholders directly. SustainAbility conducted in-depth interviews with more than 20 internal and external Ford stakeholders, including representatives of NGOs and investors, to get their feedback on our 2004/5 Sustainability and Climate Change reports. Overall, the stakeholders interviewed had a favorable impression of our reporting, believing that it was strong and sophisticated. However, many also noted a lack of information on strategy, goals and performance improvements as areas for future attention by Ford.

Ford's 2006/7 Sustainability Report was the co-winner of the top honor of the 2008 Ceres/Association of Chartered Certified Accountants North American Awards for Sustainability Reporting. The report was recognized for its identification of the material sustainability issues affecting the Company and its disclosure of the greenhouse gas emissions of our fleet, among other features. (See www.ceres.org.) Our 2004/5 report had placed in the top five.