SMMT has published the motor industry's seventh annual sustainability report.

Signatories to this report now represent over 98 percent of car and CV assembly in the UK.

This represents the largest proportion in our reporting process and makes the data a comprehensive review of sustainability of the sector.

Our business and responsibilities are changing, as a result we have looked at our commitments and updated them in two main ways; firstly to reflect the changing nature of our business and secondly to address the life cycle of vehicles from production to disposal.

The report now follows the life of the vehicle and comments on the major sustainability issues at each point of the life cycle.

• Access to expertise and advice: Through its collaborations with government agencies and other UK sectors, SMMT provides access to wide range of expertise. Through its own membership, SMMT also provides a platform for the exchange of expertise, advice and ideas, bringing together organisations from across the sector.  


• Resources: Sustainability is not a single well-defined target but a constantly evolving set of ideas and principles. SMMT provides signatories with the infrastructure and resources to review targets and objectives, engage with stakeholders, develop best practice through guidance, etc. This provides a great opportunity and should prove to be of particular value to smaller companies which may lack the resources to develop a sustainability strategy of their own; 


• Engagement and Improved Stakeholder Communication: A significant proportion of the issues of concern to stakeholders are sectoral issues such as climate change or congestion. The sectoral sustainability strategy enables individual companies to address these information needs and provides a medium through which individual companies can engage on such issues. The strategy provides a platform for stakeholder communication both in terms of increased access to stakeholders and facilitated stakeholder communication; 


• Integration: This sectoral strategy provides a means for improved integration by linking corporate approaches and national approaches.To download a copy of the report, please click on 'SMMT Briefings' above.