Tesla, Ford, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen outperforming other automotive firms on sustainability practices

March 26, 2026

A new assessment of the supply chain sustainability practices of several leading automotive firms has found that Tesla, Ford, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen are outperforming their peers by some distance.

The 2026 Lead the Charge Leaderboard, published by Lead the Charge, evaluated 18 global automotive firms on their ‘policies, practices and progress towards building equitable, sustainable, and fossil-fuel free supply chains for electric vehicles‘, with the five firms in question improving their scores at double the rate of the other 13 companies since the ranking was introduced in 2023.

The assessment explored policies, practices and disclosure across 1,584 data points and 88 indicators, covering environmental impacts and human rights standards.

As it noted, while the automotive industry as a whole has made progress in ‘establishing foundational supply chain sustainability policies and practices’, including supplier surveys, risk assessments and audits, the industry frontrunners have implemented more targeted strategies, leaning towards increasingly granular disclosures and reporting, and addressing key sources of environmental and human rights risks in their supply chain.

Tesla, for example, which tops the list, discloses both its overall supply chain emissions and how these emissions break down across key materials, such as batteries, steel, aluminium, glass and plastic.

Elsewhere, Volvo has published a position paper outlining the specific challenges it sees in decarbonising steel, and how it intends to use its leverage to address these. And Mercedes, Volkswagen and Tesla have each published detailed raw material reports on their environmental and human rights progress across a range of supply chains such as lithium, cobalt and nickel.

“This year’s leaderboard demonstrates it is possible to disclose more granular data on supply chain practices and emissions, catalysing a race to the top,” commented Abhilasha Bhola, director of the Auto Supply Chain Campaign at Public Citizen. “Ford, Volvo and Mercedes set the curve and demonstrated how much climate laggards like Toyota have fallen behind.”

While progress has been made, the automotive industry still has a ‘long way to go’ when it comes to sustainability practices, the report notes, with the average score across all 18 automakers coming in at 25%. No automaker has scored above 50%, although Tesla comes close (49%).

“Automakers must go beyond formulaic compliance and scale up targeted, supply chain-specific actions that create real impact,” added Eric Ngang, Program Director with Afrewatch International. “This year’s Leaderboard shows that meaningful progress is achievable and already demonstrated by leading companies. There is no justification for leaving producing countries and affected communities to shoulder the burden of the transition alone.” Read more here.

2026 Lead the Charge Leaderboard