According to Sierra Club, Momentum is building towards an even cleaner electric vehicle (EV), according to a scorecard of 18 global automakers. Leading companies are producing cars that don’t just run on electricity but are manufactured using decarbonized and circular materials, such as fossil-free steel and recycled battery minerals, while minimizing negative impacts on the environment, workers and communities.
The fourth edition of the Lead the Charge Auto Supply Chain Leaderboard, which ranks global automakers based on their efforts to build equitable, sustainable, and fossil-free supply chains for electric vehicles, shows a majority of automakers are now taking important initial steps to clean up their supply chains.
The analysis, published by a network of climate, human rights and investor groups, also shows a core group of industry leaders – Ford, Mercedes, Tesla, Volvo and Volkswagen – are pushing further ahead.
These companies at the head of the pack have achieved a rate of progress that is double that of the remaining 13 companies since the first edition of the Leaderboard, and are starting to implement more effective practices for decarbonizing the materials used in their vehicles and mitigating environmental and human rights abuses in their supply chains.
For example:
- Volvo and Mercedes have made significant investments in steel and aluminum decarbonization and are now disclosing specific quantities of low carbon steel and aluminum used in their new EV models, Mercedes’ CLA and Volvo’s ES90.
- Mercedes, Volkswagen and Tesla publish detailed raw material reports on their progress to prevent, mitigate and remedy human rights and environmental harms across a range of supply chains such as lithium, cobalt and nickel.
When leading performance across all automakers for all 88 indicators is taken into account, a score of 86 percent emerges. Automakers could attain this score simply by matching the existing best practices of their peers across different areas, showing that an even cleaner EV of the future is within reach.
Much of the most significant progress documented by the analysis is specific to electric vehicle supply chains, with automakers choosing to decarbonize steel and aluminum in their EVs, as opposed to their outdated internal combustion engine vehicles. Steel and aluminum production alone account for about 13 percent of global CO2 emissions. Steel and aluminum alone make up about 13 percent of global emissions. Automakers are also often going further on transparency, recycling and responsible sourcing for their EV battery supply chains. This is a boost for the electric vehicle industry amid policy and industry pullbacks in the U.S. and Europe, demonstrating to consumers that there can be even more benefits to buying EVs, beyond just eliminating tailpipe emissions.
Other progress includes:
- Chinese companies were the biggest improvers overall this year. Geely, now the top scoring East Asian automaker, has developed some of the industry’s best practices on battery decarbonization and recycling and has continued to make significant progress on human rights. BYD, the world’s largest EV maker, has taken important first steps, such as putting in place a new code of conduct for suppliers and a supply chain grievance mechanism.
- A majority of automakers have now taken initial steps on respecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights, representing 12 of the 18 automakers; in 2023 there were only six such automakers
- Over half of the automakers improved their scores on battery recycling and repurposing, with examples of progress ranging from investments in battery design to improve recyclability through to commercial partnerships to reuse EV batteries in stationary storage and to bring innovative new recycling technologies to market.
- While Tesla remains number one in the overall rankings, Volvo is number one on supply chain decarbonization, and Ford on responsible sourcing. Because of Tesla and Ford’s performance, U.S. companies were the top performers overall
- Together with Geely and BYD, Renault achieved the joint largest score jump due to making significant improvements across all of the human rights areas
But the leaderboard also shows there is still a long way to go, with even industry leaders showing patchy performances and no company reaching 50 percent of the total scores obtainable in the analysis. There has even been regressions by some carmakers:
- The world’s biggest car maker, Toyota, continues to be an industry laggard when it comes to cleaning up its supply chain, and is flailing at the bottom of the rankings along with Chinese state-owned car companies such as GAC and SAIC, who have made little to no progress in areas such as steel and aluminum decarbonization or responsible mineral sourcing. Toyota and Honda are tied for the fewest battery electric vehicles sold – EVs made up just 2 percent of their total vehicle sales in 2025.
- GM significantly fell down the leaderboard rankings this year as the only automaker that failed to publish an annual sustainability report. GM has now been overtaken in the rankings by Geely and Hyundai Motors.
In response to the Lead the Charge launch, Sierra Club representatives released the following statements:
“As the Trump administration attempts to roll back U.S. climate policy and vehicle emission standards, it is more important than ever for automakers to advance global efforts to clean up their supply chains while continuing to produce electric vehicles,” said Katherine García, Sierra Club Clean Transportation for All director. “The auto industry thrives on regulatory certainty, and the current administration is once again throwing the industry into disarray. This year’s Lead the Charge analysis shows that greater EV adoption and advancing more sustainable and responsible supply chains are not mutually exclusive. In fact, growing the EV market can serve as a catalyst for clean and equitable supply chains. Automakers have the power to lead us toward a healthier, more sustainable future.”
Published March 2026
