The Sustainability of Bmw Corporation

The triple bottom line (TBL) is the critical core for the business to be successful. It is the framework to measure the company performance in terms of environment, planet, and profit or it can be called 3Ps. However, this measure does not have the common measurement in every corporation (Slaper and Hall, n.d). This paper will focus on the sustainability of Bayerische Motoren Werke (BMW), the parenting company of Rolls-Royce and Mini-cooper. The company is one of the best luxury car manufacturers in the world, and BMW headquarter located in Munich, Germany. The roots of this company can track back in 1916 when Karl Rapp, who was the initial founded of BMW, other co-founders of BMW were Frank Ropp, Camilo, and Gustav. At first, they were an airplane industry, but after the World War I finished, they have been forced to cease producing an airplane engines. This leaded BMW to generate their first motorcycle which was called ‘R32’ in 1923. After they created their first motorcycle, they became an auto&truck manufacturers in 1928, BMW first car was called ‘Dixi’ which model was base on Austin 7 structure. At present, they are stated as a large company regard as their have around 130,000 employees from worldwide and their 2 manufacturing locate in the North America continent, 12 locate in Europe, 1 locate in Africa, and 3 locates in Asia including Thailand at Rayong province. BMW sustainability focus on their products, services, production, value creation, employees, and society (BMWgroup, n.d). BMW company provides the positive and the negative effects on people in terms of occupation, health, and its finances.

The positive impacts that the company provide to society is apprenticeship scheme, the program that generates for young people who want to gain real career experiences, and if the trainees pass all requirement, they can attend to BMW full-time employees. There are five different apprenticeship programs which are Motor Vehicle Technician, Aftersales Customer Service, Bodyshop Apprenticeship, Motorcycle Apprenticeship, and Genius Trainee Programme (“BMW retailer network”, 2018). Each program provides a different essential skill for trainees. This scheme decreases unemployment rate between 15-24 years old in Germany compare with European country as 6.7 and 17.3 percent (Jacobs, 2017). This illustrates that it reduces unemployment rate for the country and provide jobs for many young adults which directly benefits for each person. The scheme will benefit the trainee because when they finish their program they can add more £214 per week from their work, and they can enter to the company easier than others (The employer benefits of Apprenticeships, n.d. ). Additionally, the positive impacts on the company itself is that they can reduce their financial output from apprenticeship scheme because the trainees receive lower salaries than full-time employees around 40-50 percent, and the study also shows that the business can decrease their output around $366 per week if they have this project ( Steinberg and Schwartz, 2014 ).

The negative impacts toward people from BMW corporation can divide in three categories which are emission scandal, recalled vehicles, and air pollution. First and foremost, BMW has been under investigated that the company cheats by installing defeat device to 11,400 vehicles because the devices show less emission percentage than its reality, so they will recall them all when the test is approve (“Prosecutors raid”,2018 ). The study also shows that BMW cars release 11 times as much nitrogen oxide as allowed in public road (Thompson, 2015). This affect humans’ health because this substance will increase people risk in lung infection, respiratory problem, flu, colds, and coughing. In addition, BMW has also recalled 294,000 cars in the UK because it can catch fire, and another cases is that BBC watchdog investigate BMW’s vehicles because they might completely stop while driving which will cause many accidents, as the past, they recalled 500,000 cars in 2013, and now they will do the same. This illustrates that they recalled many cars of their own because it has some errors in their vehicles, and the cars can affect people lives because of serious accidents (Griffiths, 2018). This decrease the public trust towards the company, and the survey shows that people who own BMW cars are 46% consider to buy a next one and those who are not own BMW are 50% trust in them (“Recalling Cars”, 2018). BMW has both positive and negative effects on the planet in terms of pollution and resource consumption.

The positive impacts is that BMW try to reduce their consumption resources and generate electric vehicle because they believe it provides less pollution than the diesel engines. BMW i models is the series of electric cars which consists BMW i3 and BMW i8 to target the eco-friendly market demand, and BMW i3 were built from any renewable resources and recycled materials to make sure is sustainable such as plastic (BMWgroup, n.d). This shows that the company try to preserve the natural resources and the environment. BMW goal is to decrease resource consumption which are energy, water, and waste solvent around 45 percent by 2020 based on the 2006 standard to make sure that does not have the negative effects on the environment as much as they do in the past. In the past year, BMW sold electric vehicles more than 100,000 cars which show a sign that they can decrease the number of pollution because people use more EV cars.

The statistic also shows that, in 2017, BMW’s vehicles can reduce emission around 2 percent in worldwide to 141g CO2 per kilometer, and it hope to reduce at least 50 percent of pollution by 2020 based on information of 1985 (BMWgroup, n.d). The negative impacts on the earth that the corporation provides in terms of automobile vehicles is the diesel engines. This type of engine is more harmful to the environment than petrol one. All pollution which are Carbon monoxide (CO), Hydrocarbon (HC), Diesel particulate matter (DPM), Nitrogen monoxide (NOx), and Sulfur dioxide (SO2) that diesel cars release is affect the planet in terms of climate change, greenhouse effect, and global warming problem. From the study, diesel engines release carbon dioxide around 46.5 tones which is more than petrol car 3.65 tons (“Diesel cars are”, n.d). To clarify, diesel fuel contains more CO2than petrol fuel 0.37KgCO2 per lites, so this is the reason why it produces more carbon dioxide. Moreover, from the studies, they found that 91 percent of diesel cars in Europe surpass Euro 6 standard, the standard of NOx limitation on road at 0.080mph per kilometer ( SMITH, 2018). This also leads to many deaths in European. It estimates that even if the NOx meets the standard, it would be 70,000 deaths per year, and it estimates that it will be 174,000 deaths by 2040 (“38,000 people a year die”, 2017).

This indicates that Nox gases can have terrible effect to the planet and people. BMW, one of the most biggest company in the world, is the leader in the car industry. The BMW profits has increased year-to-year in the past few years (2013-2017). In 2017, the company’s net income before taxes exceed 10 billion euros for the first time, and the stock share market of BMW was increased €0.5 per share in common stock and prefered stock (BMWgroup, n.d). This indicates that the company succeed in their business, and the major revenue of the company come from automobile segment. To clarify, automobile section earned € million in 2017 : 88,581, whereas motorcycle section is € million 2,283 (BMWgroup, n.d). The company is getting stronger each year as the evidence shows that their profit in 2017 is unprecedented. Moreover, BMW has a great relationship with China, the biggest market of consumers in the world for business, so it is predictable that they will obtain many customers from China which will cause them a great profit. However, the factors that might affect the company are the prices compare to the japanese car brands that are more affordable but have a great design, the fuel and environment problems because of pollution, and the increasing of green taxes that may rise the cost of manufacturing (Jurevicius, 2016).