JLR: Embedding Sustainability in Luxury Brands

What is JLR doing to drive sustainability?

We’re taking sustainability seriously and we see it as a company value as opposed to a topic — that changes everything. 

It’s not a topic that we look at at the end of a long day where we’ve already gone through everything on the agenda, it is really baked into our strategy for the future, our operations and the culture of the company. It’s a mindset.

We’re giving people permission to really focus on things that matter in their

life, and that is transformational. That’s where you get the creativity, the engagement and the movement, which is what we need in the area of sustainability.

What do you do differently because of this?

When you treat it as a topic, you have topic experts and they are the ones

who are accountable and responsible for delivering the results — but sustainability is so big and transformational. 

It means doing things differently. It means working with different people in the organisation and even outside of your direct ecosystem. When it is a movement or when it’s part of your culture, you are really leading that transformation and that’s really key to innovation and making that transition — whether it’s clean energy or circular business models, even when it comes to services and extending the life cycle of your product. 

It’s not just one life, but how you give a product longevity, multiple uses, multiple lives, multiple ownerships. 

By making this part of the company values, you bring in that creativity and that innovation that’s required.

What’s unique about sustainability in vehicles and mobility?

I think what’s unique is that mobility has to be sustainable in the future. This means looking at it in a very different way. It is no longer a traditional “we’re

manufacturing and then a vehicle will have a lifespan of three to five years”, it is

thinking right from the design stage about the end of life and extending that end of life over a long period of time. 

I think that’s really important, particularly in the luxury sector, because you’re thinking about your asset across its entire life cycle and believing that asset has value. How do you extract and retain the maximum value of your asset throughout the entirety of its life?

How do you engage senior leadership in sustainability at JLR?  

At JLR, we are entering a critical phase in our transition to electrification as part of our Reimagine transformation, so it is important now more than ever to treat sustainability as a value that drives meaningful action within our business. 

Becoming the company’s Chief Sustainability Officer and sitting in the boardroom enables me to continue to advocate for sustainability at the highest level and bring it to the heart of the decision-making process. This ensures we are working with our ecosystem, members of our value chain and the industry to be creators of the change we want to see. 

When we look at what is happening in the world currently, things are evolving at such a pace that it becomes difficult to imagine the future. However, we need to use past and present knowledge and learnings to build resilience and constantly adjust our trajectory. Coming together, as a collective movement, to take a realistic view of the journey is also critical. 

How do you engage employees in sustainability at JLR?  

A mindset shift to implement sustainability in our daily life requires awareness and understanding of our actions and impacts.  

At JLR, we are creating an internal movement encompassing activities such as our Sustainability Summit and training rolled-out globally. 

In 2024, my team and I organised our first Sustainability Summit at our Gaydon headquarters in the UK, which was also broadcast companywide. More than 4,000 employees participated, along with suppliers, industry experts and key speakers. The response we had was so encouraging.

Reaching beyond functional sustainability roles, people felt inspired and motivated to make a difference and play an active role in our sustainability journey. We are currently organising our 2025 summit which I’m excited for. 

On the back of the 2024 event, we invited colleagues from all over JLR to join our sustainability network. Almost 1,000 colleagues — regardless of their job roles — are now engaging regularly with sustainability topics and are championing the subject in their home teams. 

Also, as a business, we take pride in looking after our people and helping them develop, upskill and equip them for our electric transformation. Through our Future Skills Programme, we are investing £20m (US$24.4m) annually to enable our workforce to pivot their career and gain new skills.  

More than 29,000 colleagues across our footprint have taken some of the training and courses, including 1,600 Halewood employees who received High Voltage Training in the plant's new training centre to prepare them for electric vehicle manufacturing.  

Lastly, in Spring, in addition to the sustainability training already available, a dedicated circularity course will be rolled out. It introduces the key principles and what it means for us — we want to encourage everyone, whatever their role, to have that shift to thinking about circularity first.   

Why is sustainability different in the luxury space?

I think when you’re in the luxury space, your customers demand sustainability. They demand that luxury is going to be leading edge across innovation, technology, ideas, service and its value proposition to its customers. 

It’s also got to be leading in terms of thought leadership on key societal issues. I think this is the differentiating thing against other products or services which aren’t luxury but are more for mass consumption with a larger audience or customer base.

SUVs are often perceived as ‘gas guzzling’ vehicles. What are you doing to change that?

I think it’s about changing the technology in a way that allows the same performance for which our vehicles have become so popular and loved by our customers. Ensuring that the future generation of vehicles is able to deliver that same performance, but to do it with far less of a carbon footprint.

The idea of branding too — JLR is a house of brands, which is very important to us. When you’re talking about a brand, it is not just the hard tangible asset, it’s that

emotional side as well. It is the soft side of things. Really understanding your

customer, what’s important to them, how they’re thinking, where they

stand on key societal issues and how your brand can actually be part of their life. I think that’s the key between luxury automotive and sustainability.

What advice would you give to sustainability professionals looking to engage stakeholders in ESG?  

For me, sustainability is a journey of hearts and minds.  

Data and targets are crucial as we need to track and be able to review the evolution and impact of our actions. However, when we tap into the deep-seated emotional commitments and values of our stakeholders, we can meet them where they are and bring them on the journey. It's about inspiring them to want to build a better future and empowering them to make the right choices. 

At the end of the day, we are the stewards of the planet for the time being and owe it to the next generations to do what we can to preserve it. 

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