The Drive Sustainability initiative; a partnership between ten leading automotive companies (BMW Group, Daimler AG, Ford, Honda, Jaguar Land Rover, Scania CV AB, Toyota Motor Europe, Volkswagen Group, Volvo Cars and Volvo Group) are involved in setting up a Raw Materials Observatory to identify and address issues in the sourcing of raw materials, including leather. During the initial phase of the initiative, 45 raw materials commonly used in car manufacturing were assessed by using a set of industry, risk and sustainability criteria, which include the material’s function, future supply, end-of-life recycling rate as well as environmental risks. Leather was considered a high-risk material in the initial assessment, which has caused some concern within the tanning industry.
Christina Bercher’s presentation will elaborate on CSR Europe’s initiative, Drive Sustainability and its members, workstreams and mission. The focus of the presentation will be on Drive Sustainability’s work on raw materials. The initiative developed the Raw Materials Observatory to identify ethical, environmental, human and labour rights issues in the sourcing of raw materials and works together in addressing them.
Drive Sustainability has completed a study to assess the sustainability risk of the top raw materials for the automotive sector and identify potential collective activities to address such risks. During the presentation Christina will give some first insights on the study outcomes with a focus on leather as a material for the automotive industry.
Five-star venue
The half-day (afternoon) conference will take place at the five-star, Steigenberger Graf Zeppelin luxury hotel in the centre of the city on Monday, June 4 (12.00-5.15pm). The reason for this date and this location is to ally the conference with the Automotive Interiors Show which is taking place in the city in the same week, June 5-8 at the Stuttgart Messe. The idea is to allow attendees of the ILM conference an opportunity to visit the show on the same trip and maximise time away from the office or factory.
The ILM conference is aimed at anyone connected with the global automotive leather supply chain from hide/skin suppliers, chemicals and machinery suppliers, research and academic institutes, associations, traders, tanners, tier-1 suppliers and automotive OEMs.
All presentations will be in English. The conference is lead sponsored by global leather chemical makers Stahl, Zschimmer & Schwarz and machinery and software maker, Lectra. It is also sponsored by JBS Couros and Erretre, supported by Zünd and the raw materials pricing and analysis website, theSauerReport.com.
The final speaker programme and topics are now confirmed and can be viewed by clicking on the link to the events page below.
To register to attend this event or for more information click here or email Maria Wallace, maria@edifydigitalmedia.com +44 (0)203 735 6537.
Most of the conference delegate places are sold so spaces may become limited in the days leading up to the conference. Reserve a place today.
