Amsterdam / Shanghai, January 18, 2022 - Climate change demands immediate action by industries around the globe, and China has been tightening regulations of various sectors, including the automotive industry, to promote environmental protection.
Polestar, a Swedish-headquartered premium electric vehicle manufacturer with most of its operations in China, wanted to be proactive and lead by example when it comes to sustainability by better aligning its supply chain to sustainable practices. In a recent client success story, management and technology consultancy BearingPoint shows how it helped Polestar define a strategic roadmap to realize climate neutrality, circularity, transparency, and cultural inclusion of its supply chain.
BearingPoint supported Polestar with a four-step approach, resulting in a strategic roadmap covering short, medium, and long-term objectives. After analyzing Polestar’s current supply-chain maturity, initiatives, and available capabilities, followed by integrating leading practices, BearingPoint defined new processes and dedicated tools to support sourcing and procurement, production, logistics and marketing.
Together with Polestar, BearingPoint prioritized the quick wins for 2021 while identifying prerequisites, setting timelines, and designating teams to support the corresponding tasks. A framework of 100+ initiatives was created, with clear actions and recommendations. Together with the client, BearingPoint defined a strategic roadmap, prepared the documentation and implementation plan, and onboarded teams and aligned stakeholders to support each theme until 2024.
Polestar has now a comprehensive roadmap that helps them drive tailored initiatives to support a sustainable supply chain. With this, the company sets the tone of how environmental best practices can be integrated in the automotive industry to support a green future.
Tunde Laleye, Partner at BearingPoint
Great collaboration with BearingPoint to integrate sustainability management into Polestar’s global procurement process. The project driven by BearingPoint enables us to align Polestar’s supply chain sustainability ambitions with suppliers and helps us to identify priorities and track progress for the areas of improvement.
Ellie Wu, Global Head of Procurement at Polestar
Polestar has gained a clear vision and a common understanding of its sustainability strategy across all divisions and functions in its Chinese operation, with a comprehensive roadmap for developing initiatives for the next three years.
By leveraging new, dedicated tools, Polestar can make data-driven decisions for its supplier procurement processes. The company can assess and monitor its suppliers’ sustainability from economic, environmental, and social perspectives, as well as appraise their cost-versus-sustainability benefits. Consequently, Polestar has the ability to challenge its suppliers to improve their service offerings by integrating more eco-friendly practices into their own supply chains.
Polestar was established as a new, standalone Swedish premium electric vehicle manufacturer in 2017. Founded by Volvo Cars and Geely Holding, Polestar enjoys specific technological and engineering synergies with Volvo Cars and benefits from significant economies of scale as a result.
Polestar is headquartered in Gothenburg, Sweden, and its vehicles are currently available and on the road in markets across Europe, North America, China, and Asia Pacific. By 2023, the company plans to be present in 30 global markets. Polestar cars are currently manufactured in two facilities in China, with additional future manufacturing planned in the USA.
BearingPoint is an independent management and technology consultancy with European roots and a global reach. The company operates in three business units: The first unit covers the advisory business with a clear focus on selected business areas. The second unit provides IP-driven digital assets and managed services beyond SaaS. The third unit is designed to explore innovative business models with clients and partners by driving the financing and development of start-ups and leveraging ecosystems.
BearingPoint’s clients include many of the world’s leading companies and organizations. The firm has a global consulting network with more than 10,000 people and supports clients in over 70 countries, engaging with them to achieve measurable and sustainable success.
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Alexander Bock
Global Senior Manager Communications
Telephone: +49 89 540338029