Abstract:

This paper focuses on analysis of sustainability reports of automotive companies and benchmarks Global Reporting Initiatives (GRI) in the automotive industry documented in the sustainability reports of selected companies. The investigation grounds on the main GRI initiatives taken by the world’s 16 major automotive companies and benchmarks them against each other. With reference of GRI initiatives, also study outcomes will enable to help and draw a vision for the new Turkish National car in terms of sustainability practices. The first part of the paper is based on explanations of some basic questions such as what sustainability is, why sustainability important for automotive, what GRI is and what does GRI bring to automotive discipline. The second part relates to the roadmap and benchmarking of the selected automotive companies’ initiatives based on GRI keywords analysis of sustainability in the automotive industry. The findings show that the world’s major automotive companies are broadly endeavoring to realize sustainability practices. Companies’ focus points based on GRI reporting format have been investigated and explained regardless of region, country, cultural differences, company size, and product type. This paper helps not only practitioners in the automotive industry to benchmarking themselves but also contribute to the new Turkish national car to create a new vision in terms of sustainability practices. Sustainability researchers and practitioners from other industries may follow how to develop sustainability practices from the comparative status report of the automotive industry.

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