The Motor City Challenge

May/June 1999

Features

Bike Friendly Cities
by Lucinda Means

Undermining the Dunes
Auto Industry Greed is Destroying Our Most Scenic Treasures

Motor City Challenge
Ecology Center Demands Cleaner Cars from Auto Industry
by Jeff Gearhart and Charles Griffith

Columns

Great Lawns
A Great Lawn with No Toxic Chemicals, by Nancy Franklin
Great Lawns without Grass, by Bret Rappaport

Welfare for Waste
National Coalition Calls for End to Anti-Recycling Subsidies

Healthy Home and Garden
Growing Herbs in Your Backyard, by Mimi Mather

The Cranky Consumer
Toxic Waste "Recycling?" by Mary Beth Doyle

Capitol Watch
New from Lansing: PR for Toothless DEQ

Dispatches

Events

At the Ecology Center
Reuben Chapman, Hospitals Pledge Mercury-Free, Help Wanted, Wish List

Ecology Center Demands Cleaner Cars from Auto Industry

by Jeff Gearhart and Charles Griffith

Very soon humans in the U.S. will be outnumbered by vehicles.

In the US alone there is one vehicle for every person alive! Each of these vehicles has many impacts on our daily lives. Yet the full view of these vehicles' environmental impact is often understated.

Yes, vehicles contribute to smog formation. And, yes they emit large amounts of global warming causing carbon dioxide. Yet most of us don't think about the energy and pollution caused by producing all of the raw materials and thousands of parts that go into for these vehicles. All of these impacts, when summed up, dramatically show why we need greener vehicles.

In order to challenge automakers and educate consumers to reduce these combined impacts, the Ecology Center has launched the Green Vehicle Challenge Campaign. Aimed at promoting cleaner production of more efficient and cleaner vehicles, the campaign will push for higher efficiency and lower emission vehicles, as well as targeting problematic materials and chemicals for phase out in vehicle production. The campaign will demand tough California emission standards, will ask for better painting practices in assembly plants and target key substances, including PVC and mercury, for elimination from cars. Overall the campaign has proposed a challenging, yet achievable target for automakers who want to compete for the green label. The campaign is a collaboration between the Ecology Center, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Michigan Environmental Council, and American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.

The campaign will emphasize the dependence of Midwest communities, economies and workers on automobile production. Michigan produces about one-third of the vehicles made in the US and is by far the number one state in automotive related manufacturing jobs. Motor vehicle and equipment manufacturing account for 245,577 (25.6%) of Michigan's 960,243 manufacturing jobs and 21% of the motor vehicle and equipment employment in the U.S. And 13% of all Midwest (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin) manufacturing jobs are in the motor vehicle and manufacturing sector. The campaign will highlight the need for a transition strategy to maintain and create more jobs while addressing key environmental issues.

Why Green Cars?

Driving cars, trucks and minivans, as well as other forms of transportation, account for 27% of all U.S. energy consumption and 32% of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, a key contributor to global warming. In terms of toxic air pollution, the transportation sector contributes 36% of all VOCs, 45% of all Nitrogen Oxides and 19% of fine particulate (PM2.5). In addition to important health effects related to the actual toxicity of these compounds, the reaction of NOx and VOCs in the presence of sunlight results in the formation of ozone or smog, a leading contributor to heart disease, asthma, respiratory illness, and other public health concerns.

All of these impacts are even larger when the full life cycle of the automobile is considered, including upstream emissions from fuel, raw material and component production and end-of-life disposal of vehicles. The Michigan Department of Commerce has estimated that 70% of national employment in chemicals, plastics and primary metal production is auto related. These sectors in turn account for 3/4 of all Toxics Release Inventory(TRI) releases.

One hundred million tons of paint are used each year to paint cars. Painting accounts for the majority of the 98.7 million pounds per year of TRI releases in the motor vehicle sector . Four million pounds per year of these releases are substances identified as Great Lakes persistent toxins. Other substances of concern in the production of vehicles include lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, PVC, CFC's, chlorinated solvents, and asbestos. For example, 11 tons of mercury is used each year in switches and other automotive components. Many of these materials show up at the end of a vehicle's life where, although most of the steel and other metals are recycled, 2.5 - 3 million tons of automotive shredder residue is landfilled or burned, releasing these toxins into the environment. Much of this shredder residue is plastics, including PVC.

The automobile's infrastructure adds yet another burden. State highway capital and maintenance outlays totaled $42 billion dollars in the US, an increase of 7.2% from 1996 ($842 million in Michigan, a 7.6% increase over 1996). This directly translates to increased production of asphalt and cement at production facilities which are often huge polluters.

Future projections show that the growth of auto related impacts are not likely to slow anytime soon. The Department of Energy (DOE) has projected that by 2030 US transportation energy use will have increased by 60% over 1990 levels, with corresponding increases in greenhouse gases.

Clearly, the environmental impact from the entire transportation sector must be sharply reduced. To accomplish this, changes must occur on many levels. Planning and zoning laws must be changed to reduce sprawl and the need to drive. Mass transit should be subsidized at the same levels that the auto and petroleum industry have enjoyed for years. And finally, the fleet of vehicles on the road must be made greener, sooner.

The Green Vehicle Challenge

The Green Vehicle Challenge will directly challenge automakers to produce greener vehicles now. This Challenge seeks significant measurable annual progress in mass production and the mainstream market towards clean and efficient technologies and practices. This transformation will protect human health and the environment, and preserve jobs and quality of life in communities which depend on the industry.

The Challenge will also ask consumers and fleet buyers to support the production of green vehicles by pledging to purchase vehicles which meet our green vehicle standard. Based on a life cycle perspective, the standard promotes vehicles which: (1) use less energy; (2) reduce tailpipe emissions; and (3) reduce impacts from the manufacture and ultimate disposal of the vehicle. Meeting this standard should compliment other important values of practicality, affordability and safety. The pledges will then be used to help convince automakers that there is a market for vehicles which utilize best available environmental practices and technologies.

The Green Vehicle Standard

The Campaign's Green Vehicle Standard requires fuel efficiency at least 50% better than that achieved by other vehicles in a vehicle class, and tailpipe emissions which meet California's ultra low emitting vehicle (ULEV) standard. We expect that these targets will be achieved by utilizing one or more of the following advanced technologies:

The Campaign also requires manufacturers to achieve superior environmental performance in the vehicles' manufacture, and the use of non-toxic recyclable materials. These performance based standards include best-in-class painting/coating practices, the elimination of heavy metals and other substances of concern, and design for recyclability and maximum use of recycled materials. We expect the clean manufacturing standard to be achieved using many of the practices and policies which already exist in the industry; examples include:

The Road Ahead

We believe the industry can best assert its leadership in the green vehicle technology arena by committing to broad market introduction of these new technologies sooner, rather than later, and across a variety of market segments. We invite the industry not only to meet this challenge, but to join with us in helping to establish the strong market demand that will ultimately ensure the industry's success in selling these greener vehicles. We think this is the type of partnership which can ultimately drive the automobile industry to an environmentally friendlier and economically sound future, while still meeting the broad needs of society.

Going to the Top

Charles Griffith issued the Ecology Center's Green Vehicle Challenge directly to new Ford Motor Company Chairman William C. Ford, Jr. at the company's annual shareholders' meeting on May 13. Ford, Jr. has a positive environmental reputation, and has sparked great curiosity about the direction he may take the number two automaker. After speaking, Griffith was mobbed by reporters from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Reuters, and other news agencies. We've excerpted some of his comments below.

"It may not be a surprise, but perhaps not well known either, that in U.S. sales Ford has the lowest overall fleet fuel efficiency of any major automaker. This means that, on a per vehicle basis, Ford contributes more to automotive-related global warming that any other car company....

"Ford has already begun to address the concern.... But what about today? Can't Ford begin to significantly improve the efficiency of the vehicles it produces in the near-term? We think the answer to that question is Yes. Lightweight materials and hybrid electric vehicles appear ready now. Indeed, Toyota and Honda have already promised the introduction of hybrid-electric vehicles to the U.S. market starting later this year. And other automakers appear to be joining them in the Japanese market soon after.

"We believe Ford can best assert its leadership in the vehicle technology arena by committing to broad market introduction of these new technologies sooner, rather than later, and across a variety of market segments.... If Ford is to be an environmental leader, it must lead, not follow -- and it already has lost ground to make up for."