Engagement

 

Engagement is of great importance for EAM‘s sustainable investment approach.

It combines own initiatives with collaboration on a national and international level.

The structured engagement process is based on the „EAM Engagement Guideline“

which determines engagement issues, approach and procedures.

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Engagement focus on "CO2 standards in the European automotive sector"

 

Last year we saw intense discussions about the new carbon dioxide standards for the European automotive sector,

which at the end of 2013 resulted in an agreement: by 2021 passenger cars may only emit a fleet average 95g of

carbon dioxide – a calculation in which electric cars are weighted more heavily. This is tantamount to a consumption

of 3.5l of diesel or 4l of petrol per 100km. For the EAM Responsible Investments team, these changes in the market

served as an incentive to get in touch with car manufacturers.

​​Until 2021 the automotiveindustry must clean up​

Erste Asset Management was able to discuss the influence of the new CO2 standards on their strategy with

BMW, Daimler, Renault, Toyota, and VW. All of these companies are glad about the agreement, seeing that it

improves the planning reliability. That being said, VW and BMW point out that their ambition is to achieve the

standards by 2020 – one year ahead of EU schedule. The various manufacturers differ in the approach to cutting

the carbon dioxide emissions of their fleets. BMW and VW can be regarded as generalists: Their R&D efforts and

investments are not only intensive, but also broad, covering all segments in order to reduce carbon dioxide emissions

and make vehicles more efficient. Toyota on the other hand continues to focus on hybrid technology – the area

where it is market leader. The intensity of the efforts to improve vehicle efficiency manifests itself in the R&D

expenses. VW and Toyota each invested more than USD 9bn in 2012. While all the aforementioned companies

also develop electric cars, these are not regarded as core investment. The reasons cited are high costs, lack of

infrastructure, and subdued acceptance among customers. Renault has been taking a different view, betting

largely on the mass production of electric cars.

 

The last issue we enquired about was whether the automotive sector was only interested in the reduction of

exhaust fumes or whether steps have been taken to cut carbon dioxide emissions across the entire value chain

of vehicle production. The responses we received came as a positive surprise. All companies that responded to

our enquiry are trying to cut their resource consumption and emissions in general. Renault is ahead of the curve by

measuring the carbon footprint for every vehicle since 2010, with the goal of reducing it by 10% within three years.