John Viera: The Hidden Gem of Sustainability

I actually was named to lead our sustainability efforts for Ford. And when we talk about the sustainability efforts, that's our environmental efforts. So it was all about, as we look at the vehicles that we produce, how do we ensure that the materials that we're using in the vehicle are responsible, right? That they're having, you know, hopefully a zero impact on the environment. And then also lots of work on emissions, if it's CO2 emissions or other emissions, right? That was a big focus of how to develop those strategies. Clearly the plants we build those products in was a big focus. I would say though that the hidden gem of sustainability, and it's something that I'm gonna be touching on, I'm thinking throughout this talk, was the social aspect. Right, from a social sustainability, and it was something I wasn't that familiar with, I was an engineer, a technical guy, but I had this team of social sustainability experts and they actually, you know, when I was there developed a policy letter, which is kind of like an amendment in the United States. Very hard to have them at Ford. So you have kind of like this constitution, and these amendments are kind of the policies that are inviolable. And this policy letter addressed human rights, working conditions, fair wages, anti-bribery, and we added sex trafficking, human trafficking to that. And it was so awesome because we put this together first in the industry. And not only did we use that to make sure we were behaving correctly at Ford, but we're actually able to drive that into the supply base. So really making a difference in the world, that was a piece that, I'll tell you what, when I was a first and second year student at Michigan, that wasn't even on my radar screen.