Ford Becomes First U.S. Automaker to Require Suppliers To Achieve ISO 14001 Certification

DEARBORN, Mich. (PROTEXT) - In another example of Ford Motor Company's (NYSE: F) environmental leadership, the automaker is requiring ISO 14001 certification from all of its suppliers with manufacturing facilities. ISO 14001 is an environmental standard under which independent auditors evaluate environmental processes and system performance. Ford is the first U.S. automaker to require certification by suppliers and is one of only a few automakers in the world to require certification of its suppliers. The requirement follows the announcement in December that Ford is the first and only automotive company to certify its plants around the world under ISO 14001 -- 140 manufacturing facilities in 26 countries. "This requirement reinforces Ford's commitment to the environment," said Carlos Mazzorin, Group Vice President of Purchasing and Ford of Mexico. "We have extended that commitment to thousands of other companies -- exponentially increasing the benefits of this rigorous environmental certification." Specifically, Ford is requiring suppliers to certify at least one manufacturing site to ISO 14001 by the end of 2001 and all manufacturing sites shipping products to Ford by July 1, 2003. To help suppliers meet these goals, Ford is offering ISO 14001 Awareness Training later this year at its Total Cost Management Center. In addition, Ford is exploring tools that it can make available to suppliers to let them benefit from Ford's experience in achieving ISO 14001 certification at its plants. The requirement affects about 5,000 of Ford's production and non- production suppliers with manufacturing facilities. Mazzorin sent letters to suppliers informing them of the requirement. Ford decided to require ISO 14001 certification of its suppliers after it surveyed its top suppliers earlier this year about their environmental policies and programs. Several suppliers indicated that some of their manufacturing facilities were already registered to ISO 14001. The majority of the suppliers said they planned to register their plants to ISO 14001 in the next few years. Ford Purchasing also is leading other environmental efforts with suppliers. For example, Ford is working with its fabric suppliers to explore the use of eco-effective fabrics for future vehicles. In addition, Ford is working through vehicle program teams to increase the amount of recycled materials and the number of recycled components on the approximately 7 million cars and trucks it sells each year. ots Original Text Service: Ford Motor Company Internet: http://www.newsaktuell.de Contact: Ron Iori of Ford, 313-317-4234 Web site: http://www.ford.com Subscribers please note that material bearing the slug "PROTEXT" is not part of CTK's news service and is not to be published under the "CTK" slug. Protext is a commercial service providing distribution of press releases from clients, who are identified in the text of Protext reports and who bear full responsibility for their contents. PROTEXT