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The acceleration of global climate change poses enormous challenges to the automotive manufacturing industry, a key sector in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Particularly, Scope 3 emissions, encompassing indirect emissions, often constitute the largest carbon footprint component in this sector, yet their quantification and management remain challenging. This paper proposes an interdisciplinary approach that integrates cloud computing, text analysis, and machine learning, and systematically details its implementation, key benefits, and potential applications. Through this methodology, the paper seeks to provide the automotive industry with innovative and actionable insights to tackle the complexities of Scope 3 emissions. It focuses on enhancing the accuracy of emission quantification and optimizing supply chains, aiming to reduce the overall carbon footprint. Moreover, this paper outlines the future challenges and directions for these technologies and methodologies in sustainable development and environmental management. This work underlines the critical role of interdisciplinary approaches in resolving environmental challenges, setting the stage for the automotive industry to forge paths towards a greener future. Highlights: • The article explores the challenges of managing Scope 3 emissions, emphasizing the importance of strengthened quantitative analysis and strategic oversight. • The research promotes interdisciplinary integration, combining cloud computing, text analysis, and machine learning to establish a comprehensive framework for emission data management and reduction. • The development of a specialized SaaS platform is proposed to refine data collection practices, enhance stakeholder interaction, and streamline emission management workflow. • The adoption of text analysis in supply chain management optimization is advocated to improve operational efficiency and support decision-making processes. • The discussion covers technological, policy, and market developments potentially affecting Scope 3 emissions management strategies, offering a long-term orientation for future research and industry practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehensively understanding how the policy influences the sustainability transition of the automotive industry is a critical focus in recent years. This paper focuses on the dual-credit policy, an underexplored but critical policy in China, and examines how it would influence the transition of automotive industry. To achieve this goal, an SD model is developed to simulate the effect of policy parameters on the policy objectives by considering the interaction of production, technology and market. The findings reveal that this policy can in general promote the sustainable development of the automotive industry by greatly decreasing its overall energy consumption. However, its impact on the market share of new energy vehicles is limited. Based on the results, some policy suggestions are proposed so as to improve the effectiveness of the dual-credit policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regulations, depletion of natural resources and changing customer demands are putting pressure on manufacturing companies to consider environmental issues in the development of new products. Companies are using PLM systems to manage the product lifecycle, but the current generation of these systems is not adequately adapted to product sustainability issues. The research results presented in this article are intended to support two target groups: academia and industry. The main scientific objective is to provide a systematic method for selecting and evaluating sustainability indicators related to the various phases of automotive lifecycle management. The main application goal is to support the industry in its pursuit of greener development by identifying which sustainability indicators are relevant to each phase of the product lifecycle. As a result, the key green indicators related to the automotive industry in line with the GreenPLM concept are identified together with their assignment to the elements of the car's beginning-of-life stages, as well as their potential data sources. This paper introduces the concept of GreenPLM and its future application possibilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electric vehicles have been based on a new product architecture: modular electric vehicle platforms (MEVPs). Through a case study, this paper uses efficiency and sustainability criteria to analyse this modular architecture as implemented by three automobile manufacturers in their European production networks. The results show that MEVPs have been adopted to achieve the efficiency of mass‐production electric vehicles in order to comply with regulatory environmental requirements. MEVPs are designed with structural compatible modules, an electric drive system architecture and modular batteries that can be adapted to each vehicle. These designs are focused on limiting energy consumption by reducing weight with the use of high‐performance materials or extra‐thin batteries. Some of these MEVPs use fewer components in their design to facilitate disassembly and recycling. This new modular architecture has been implemented through compatible, flexible production systems accompanied by different sustainable production initiatives. The production system has incorporated carbon‐neutral production processes or circular economy production models, which include remanufacturing and reuse. Networks resulting from these new MEVPs are geographically concentrated and are not conditioned by location factors. The roles of the plants have been mainly driven by economies of scale to achieve high‐performance specialised products and high volumes. These plants play a role as hubs for electric vehicle production in the manufacturers' European production networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing number of organizations across a variety of industries are now pursuing sustainable management business goals to improve business efficiency, manage stakeholder expectations, or for legislative compliance. This is also the case for automotive manufacturing organizations who are under pressure from their stakeholders to manage and improve sustainability performance. This requires the development of credible measurement tools and systems to enable capture and monitoring of sustainability. This paper describes the development process for an innovative model, named the Automotive Sustainability Assessment Model (A‐SAM), to drive sustainable decision‐making in the automotive sector. The process of developing the model consisted of four major steps, each of which contained series of intermediate steps, individual objectives, and research methods. The model measures, quantifies, and translates a broad range of external effects (both positive and negative) into their monetary equivalents, enabling large car manufacturers to evaluate options, identify win–wins, and optimize trade‐off, while making complex and multidisciplinary sustainability decisions. It allows managers and design engineers in the automotive sector to develop a better understanding of the environmental, resource, and social impacts of their activities, products, processes, and materials used, while still ensuring cost‐effectiveness when making decisions. The A‐SAM shows promise as an effective tool for supporting sustainability decisions in a business environment. Although developed in the context of the automotive industry, it can be adapted by organizations of any type, operating across many different sectors for managing sustainability in a more holistic, comprehensive, and integrated manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Despite the importance of green supply chain integration (GSCI) in advancing green innovation (GI) is recognized, it remains unclear how firms can translate their GSCI efforts into GI. Therefore, this study aims to understand how GSCI affects GI, with its dimensions (exploitative GI and exploratory GI), as well as to investigate the mediating role of green knowledge integration capability (GKIC) and the moderating role of blockchain technology (BCT) adoption. Design/methodology/approach: On the basis of data collected from 247 managers working in Indian firms in the automotive industry, the authors tested the proposed model using the PROCESS macro tool via SPSS software. Findings: The empirical results indicate that GSCI is positively associated with both exploitative and exploratory GI, with a higher effect on exploitative GI. In addition, GKIC mediates the link between GSCI and exploitative GI in contrast to exploratory GI. Notably, the relationship between GSCI and GKIC is stronger when BCT adoption is high. Originality/value: This study opens the black box of how GSCI affects exploitative and exploratory GI by revealing the mediating role of GKIC and the moderating role of BCT adoption. It provides valuable insights for practitioners to translate GSCI efforts into GI through developing GKIC and adopting BCT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is the fastest growing industrial technique, harboring innovative, cost effective and environmentally friendly solutions. Over the years, AM technologies have been utilized in the aerospace and automotive industries mainly for prototyping purposes. However, 3D printing of aircraft and automobile components and parts has recently proven its efficiency. In this paper, a comprehensive review on the utilization of AM technologies in the aerospace and automotive industries is presented. The various AM techniques are compared based on their process, materials, and applications. In addition, the opportunities and limitations of AM in aerospace and automotive industries are highlighted. Finally, the contribution of AM and 3D printing in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is examined and evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past few years, it can be seen that the automotive market has been developing quite rapidly, especially when it comes to electric cars. This is because the development of sustainable cars seems to be an extremely important issue at the moment. Nowadays, cars with different propulsion systems (among others electric, hybrid, gas, or hydrogen) can be met on the roads. But, political action is mainly aimed at electric cars. Such an approach will certainly lead to fundamental changes in production processes in the near future via the emergence and development of new technologies in the field of electric passenger cars. Therefore, the manuscript discusses the concept of vehicles with different types of power supply, with the main emphasis on electric vehicles. The essence of electric vehicles, their genesis, rationale for development, and growth are indicated. The different markets around the world, through the prism of, on the one hand, programs supporting the purchase and use of this type of vehicle and, on the other hand, factors limiting and inhibiting their uptake, are also discussed. The research was conducted in a group of both current and potential drivers from Eastern Poland, with different categories of grouping variables used in the analyses. On the basis of the research carried out and the results obtained, it can be argued that due to various factors, the respondents' opinions are varied, and there are no unambiguous conclusions stating that such solutions will soon be available. Indeed, a number of doubts and barriers were noted among respondents. Driver preferences are therefore a key issue, but production capacity and the profitability of investments in the purchase of vehicles with an electric power supply should also be taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The automobile is an important part of transportation systems. Accurate prediction of sales prospects of different power vehicles can provide an important reference for national scientific decision making, flexible operation of enterprises and rational purchases of consumers. Considering that China has achieved the goal of 20% sales of new energy vehicles ahead of schedule in 2025, in order to accurately judge the competition pattern of new and old kinetic energy vehicles in the future, the automobile market is divided into three types according to power types: traditional fuel vehicles, new energy vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Based on the monthly sales data of automobiles from March 2016 to March 2023, the prediction effects of multiple models are compared from the perspective of univariate prediction. Secondly, based on the perspective of multivariate prediction, combined with the data of economic, social and technical factors, a multivariate prediction model with high prediction accuracy is selected. On this basis, the sales volume of various power vehicles from April 2023 to December 2025 is predicted. Univariate prediction results show that in 2025, the penetration rates of three types of vehicles will reach 43.8%, 44.4% and 11.8%, respectively, and multivariate prediction results show that the penetration rates will reach 51.0%, 37.9% and 11.1%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability performance of suppliers has become increasingly important for both corporate practice and research. While the importance of relationships between the focal company and its suppliers has been acknowledged for improving sustainability performance of suppliers, little is known about the role of relation specific factors in practice. This research fills this gap by empirically analyzing the relevance of relationspecific factors for the sustainability performance of suppliers based on a unique data set of 736 first‐tier suppliers of a German original equipment manufacturer in the automotive industry. The analysis reveals that the sustainability performance of suppliers relates positively to transaction volume and relationship length as specific forms of relation specific characteristics as well as strategic partnership as a proxy of incentivized, in‐depth cooperation and knowledge exchange. Each of the investigated relation‐specific characteristics show a link with either environmental or with social performance. Conclusions are drawn for research and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this research is to assess the economic growth and sustainable development of Ethiopia. To what extent does the Chinese investment contribute to the overall economic development of Ethiopia after the Belt Road Initiative (BRI)? What are the main focus areas for development in the region and how does the BRI initiative connect people in the country? This research examines the development process through the use of a case study and discursive analysis to know the result of the investigation. The study is deeply elaborated and the technique adds analytical and qualitative methods. Furthermore, this research attempts to highlight the key approaches and concepts of Chinese engagement in Ethiopia as it attains development in several sectors through the BRI. The BRI is successfully pioneering transport systems, roads, railways, small industries, automotive sectors, and health development programs in Ethiopia. As result, the Chinese investments bring changes to the country after the successful launch of the BRI. Furthermore, the study concludes that there is a need to initiate numerous projects to improve human, social, and economic life in Ethiopia because the country is suffering from many internal problems and China has to work to eradicate recurring problems in the country. As an external actor, the role of China gains importance in Ethiopia in the context of the New Silk Road economic engagement in the African Continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work focuses on the study of how green strategies (GBS) and eco‐innovation (EI) contribute to increasing sustainable and financial performance in the context of the Mexican manufacturing industry, and whether these relationships are mediated by the practices involved in sustainable supply chains (SSCs). This analysis is carried out through an empirical study of a sample of 460 companies in the automotive industry. The results reveal direct positive effects of GBS and EI on performance both, sustainable and financial. In spite of the key role played by SSC, this variable only exerts a mediating effect on the sustainable performance. Nevertheless, although the significant direct effect of sustainable supply chains on financial performance is not verified, there is an indirect effect of supply chains on financial performance through their influence on sustainable development. The findings reveal important implications for managers. They provide rational arguments (increase in performance) that should motivate companies in the Mexican automotive industry to incorporate values, standards, and actions focused on reducing the effects of their activities on the environment. These considerations will lead to a change in behavior which is better aligned with global environmental demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Circular supply chain management (CSCM) is proving to be a strong contributor towards sustainable development. The purpose of this study is to analyse the circular practices in CSCM implementation towards sustainability in the Indian auto sector; these practices are at the initial stage in a developing economy. Design/methodology/approach: In this research work, a framework has been developed to enrich understanding of various CSCM practices for sustainability. To develop a causal framework, a Fuzzy Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (F-DEMATEL) methodology has been adopted. Findings: The results produce 32 practices with cause and effect groups and their importance/priorities. Based on F-DEMATEL, these 32 practices are grouped into cause and effect groups based on R + C and R − C values. Research limitations/implications: The findings will help managers and decision-makers to gain a deeper understanding of the practices and their nature; the governmental and financial practices are identified as the most critical factors that need more attention. The results will help strategy makers to plan accordingly. Originality/value: This research has identified and analysed 32 basic practices and their interrelationships to achieve sustainability in CSCM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly sophisticated consumer requirements, as well as the constraints imposed by environmental policies around the world, are driving car manufacturers to find new ways and adopt various strategies to compete and attract consumers. The car market has grown steadily in recent decades, except in 2020 when it saw dramatic declines. The need for motor vehicles is undeniable in the economy, bringing many benefits (transport of goods and people, jobs, education), but their manufacture, marketing and use also brings a number of environmental problems (pollution, excessive consumption of water and energy, traffic congestion, increasing the number of serious accidents and at the same time increasing the costs of caring for people with temporary incapacity for work). To improve this, manufacturers in the automotive industry need to implement new strategies to help them meet the demands of society and the needs of consumers, but also to meet competition. Although the literature provides information on strategies and measures that have been taken in the automotive industry to improve the quality of products and processes, the authors have not found any studies on the quality strategies implemented. In order to highlight these strategies and how consumers perceive their implementation, the authors conducted an exploratory research and a quantitative marketing research. The results of the research showed that Romanians want to help a sustainable development, but when they choose a car they are guided by the reputation of the brand and price, not by the degree of pollution of the car or the type of engine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]