Motor vehicle industry chief executives are planning a ‘summit’ during this week’s Paris motor show to counter the barrage of demands for improved environmental and safety standards, the Financial Times (FT) said.
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The FT said that the gathering of global CEOs on Friday – the first time they have come together – illustrates the seriousness with which the industry is taking demands by pressure groups for new environmental legislation.
The newspaper said that the meeting, called by Jean-Martin Folz, chairman of the managing board of PSA Peugeot Citröen, immediately raised concerns that the industry would intensify lobbying to block new rules.
But Xavier Fels, PSA’s director of external relations, told the FT that the private meeting – which will take place near the Paris motor show on Friday afternoon – was “broader than lobbying”.
“They want to prepare themselves for interaction with the government and other sectors such as the oil sector,” he said. “They wanted to think together about what is at stake in the relation between automotive products and society, for instance in the field of environment and safety.”
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By GlobalDataBut, according to the Financial Times, environmental group Friends of the Earth said the industry had a record of “green-washing” to create the appearance of action to cut carbon dioxide emissions, reduce particulates in exhaust fumes and increase recycling.
“[The meeting] is potentially extremely worrying,” senior transport campaigner Roger Higman told the FT. “A lot depends on whether they are getting together in order to try to solve these problems or whether they are getting together to stick together.”
One senior motor vehicle executive told the FT that the meeting had originally been arranged to assess the impact on the industry of the Johannesburg Earth Summit.
