Environmental, social and governance pressures weigh heavily on the auto industry

Environmentally, the automotive sector is undoubtedly under pressure, with increasing climate-related regulations—and subsequent fines for non-compliance—threatening to reduce profitability. At S&P Global Ratings, we view all automakers with sizeable operations in the EU at risk of depressed operating profits as a result of such fines, or the exposure to lower returns from electric vehicles (EVs). On the contrary, we see sensitivity to social risk disruption as not imminent and linked to a change in the industry’s traditional ownership model, which will take time to fully unfold but is already triggering the development of expensive new technologies to adapt to the emergence of a new demand for mobility services. And this is in addition to already sizeable investments required for compliance with environmental targets and EV development.