Jaguar Land Rover Company Review

January 12, 2017

Welcome to the Jaguar Land Rover company review. In this series of articles, we put the spotlight on businesses that we think are doing ambitious and honourable things for the environment. These features will cover things like corporate social responsibility, sustainability, green credentials, carbon reduction measures, recycling, reuse and reduction efforts, supply chain responsibility, and more.

In this article, we will be taking an in-depth look at Jaguar Land Rover, originally a British manufacturer, now part of India’s Tata Motors group. In 2018 and the half-decade before, they have been continually recognised for their progressive efforts, all of which we will explore and explain.

“We’re committed to growing our business responsibly and sustainably, so we can add value to our customers, company and the wider economy.”
Dr Ralf Speth
CEO, Jaguar Land Rover

Sustainability

Score: 15%

Some great initiatives have been set up at some of their production centres: There is a closed loop aluminium recovery and recycling operation in place at their Castle Bromwich production centre Land Rover is also trialling all-aluminium models that can use a high percentage of recycled material Using Life Cycle Assessment to inform future research and product developments in order to reduce the overall environmental impact of products and operations Reducing the weight of a vehicle’s body and components to make the cars more efficient Put in place a long-term goal of using sustainable materials such as natural rubber, recycled aluminium and plastics. Despite all of the positive news above, these are some concerns about long-term sustainability for the car manufacturer, especially after some recent events, including: Cutting their temporary worker numbers by 1000 after sales for Jaguar and Land Rover dropped 26% and 20% respectively in April 2018. Closing their Solihull manufacturing plant for two weeks (with full pay) when demand for their vehicles slumped in October 2018

Green Credentials

Score: 16%

2012 BITC Big Tick climate change award 2012 BITC Corporate Responsibility Index Platinum status 2013 Responsible Business of the Year - Business in the Community Awards 2013 BITC Big Tick award for education 2014 BITC Award for International Trade 2014 Climate Change Big Tick award 2015 Queen's Award for Enterprise in Sustainable Development 14 Queen’s Awards for Jaguar and Land Rover combined since 1967 2019 Nominated for Mission Possible: Mobility at the Sustainability Leaders Awards Clearly, Jaguar Land Rover are making huge leaps and bounds in the sustainability and environmental game, at least trying to reinvent themselves from a highly pollutive 4x4 producer to a somewhat ethical luxury SUV manufacturer. In the long run, we will see how many award ceremonies take notice and say ‘How hard are you really pushing the sustainable and electric vehicle movement?’.

Corporate Social Responsibility Test

Score: 19%

Supporting local and global communities with humanitarian & health, education, design, technology & talent, environment & conservation projects through their 2020 Global Corporate Social Responsibility programme. Set up ‘Inspiring Tomorrow’s Engineers Programme’ educating more than 200,000 young people Running various award-winning Apprenticeship Programmes Supporting the Red Cross globally with work helping vulnerable people Working with the Born Free Foundation in Kenya to set up Boma Fences to protect people from lions Land Rover has supported the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) for 25 years, funding outreach and expedition activities including the Land Rover Bursary. Part of the Lifestraw project with ClimateCare and Vestergaard to help bring drinkable water to parts of Kenya Female engineering apprentices up by 150% between 2018 and 2017, helping to introduce women to an industry dominated 91% by men. Internationally, their achievements are superb, and when you scroll up to the BITC awards they’ve won, clearly they’re making a domestic difference too. The reason they didn’t score full marks for this category was due to the uncertainty over job security, likely creating fears in local economies.

Carbon Footprint

Score: 18%

Working with other car manufacturers to ship cars together when exporting to other countries, to reduce the carbon footprint of delivery Using low carbon and renewable energy to power many of their sites Emissions per vehicle are being reduced even as production and sales increase European tailpipe CO2 down by 21% Operational carbon emissions per vehicle down by 21% Carbon emissions from logistics down by 18% per vehicle Targeting a 30% total manufacturing emissions reduction by 2020 The progress made already is mightily impressive, especially a 21% reduction on tailpipe emissions, but the question must be asked, why wasn’t this done sooner? Secondly, are other manufacturers taking note and seeing what can be done?

Recycling, Reuse, Reduction

Score: 15%

Teams are in place to minimise wastage during the manufacturing process Waste to landfill per vehicle down by 75% Water use per vehicle down by 17% The waste to landfill figure is outstanding, but aside from this, it’s hard to find out exactly what is going on to achieve these figures, and we would be grateful if Jaguar Land Rover and other companies like them went into greater detail.