Automakers are increasingly pursuing responsibly sourced minerals for their electric vehicles, with leading companies starting to impose more stringent requirements on mining suppliers, according to a new analysis of 18 global automakers’ supply chain practices.
The fourth edition of the Lead the Charge Auto Supply Chain Leaderboard finds that automaker commitments and supplier requirements for responsibly sourced minerals have grown substantially since 2023. Companies such as BYD, Geely, Hyundai and Kia have established new commitments and requirements, while others such as Renault, Volvo and BMW have expanded existing ones. Additionally, over 80% of the indicators on responsible mineral sourcing have now been met by at least one company.
Notably, the number of automakers with explicit commitments and supplier requirements to respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights—whose traditional lands encompass approximately 50% of the world’s energy transition mineral resources—has also grown from just six out of 18 companies in 2023 to 12 in 2026.“By pushing for improvements across a variety of issues, electric vehicle makers are demonstrating that they have the ability to help transform mineral supply chains,” said Ellen Moore, the Mining Program Director at Earthworks. “As influential buyers, they can steer the mining industry towards practices that respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights, workers, human rights, and the environment.”
“By pushing for improvements across a variety of issues, electric vehicle makers are demonstrating that they have the ability to help transform mineral supply chains,” said Ellen Moore, the Mining Program Director at Earthworks. “As influential buyers, they can steer the mining industry towards practices that respect Indigenous Peoples’ rights, workers, human rights, and the environment.”
The report also finds that some of the top performing companies are starting to go further to ensure the minerals in their EVs are mined responsibly, imposing more stringent requirements for specific minerals and undertaking on-the-ground due diligence to verify supplier compliance. For example:
- Ford, Tesla and Renault have disclosed direct mineral sourcing agreements that include specific human rights and environmental requirements in contractual terms.
- Mercedes, Volkswagen and Tesla publish detailed raw material reports on their progress to prevent, mitigate and remedy human rights and environmental harms across a range of supply chains such as lithium, cobalt and nickel. In these reports, the companies disclose multiple examples of direct engagement with extractive companies and impacted rights holders to address specific harms — including with copper and cobalt suppliers in the DRC, lithium suppliers in Chile and Australia, and nickel suppliers in Indonesia.
- Mercedes, Ford and Volkswagen require suppliers of battery minerals to undergo audits by the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA), the most robust and comprehensive third party standard on responsible mining according to analysis from Lead the Charge and others. Ford has made IRMA verification a condition of its direct sourcing agreement for lithium from Australia.
“By rejecting weak systems that drive a race to the bottom like the Consolidated Mining Standard, automakers can demonstrate their commitment to human rights and the environment,” said Chelsea Hodgkins, senior ZEV policy advocate with Public Citizen’s Climate Program. “Automakers must join civil society and demand high road mining practices.”
Taken together, this progress shows a clear trajectory of growing automaker demand for responsibly produced minerals, laying down a challenge for mining companies—which have long been associated with human rights and environmental abuses—to deliver or risk losing business.
Foundations mostly in place, but implementation gaps remain
The analysis shows automakers have made strong progress on due diligence fundamentals, with the average score across all automakers on overall human rights due diligence now up to 47%—up 16 percentage points since 2023.
Ford and BMW lead in this area, both achieving 73%. However, Chinese companies BYD and Geely were among the biggest improvers in this area in 2026. BYD achieved a 20 percentage point increase in its overall due diligence score after establishing a new supplier code of conduct and supply chain grievance mechanism. Geely published standalone Human Rights and Sustainable Raw Material policies.
Whilst the industry is moving in the right direction, these foundational practices are not yet translating into consistent, targeted action to address major sources of human rights risks and impacts in EV supply chains. Average scores drop sharply—to just 20%—across the three issue-specific human rights subsections evaluated by the Leaderboard, covering transition mineral sourcing, Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and workers’ rights in the supply chain.
“As Climate Rights International has documented in Indonesia, the world’s largest producer of nickel, the consequences of the rush for battery minerals can be disastrous for local communities and the climate, including land grabbing, severe air and water quality pollution, attacks on environmental human rights defenders, and the buildout of new captive coal plants to power the nickel industry,” said Krista Shennum, Senior Researcher with Climate Rights International. “But it doesn’t have to be this way. Electric vehicle companies have unique leverage to demand that the minerals used in their supply chains are mined and processed in an environmentally sustainable and rights-respecting way and could position themselves as global leaders in the fight against climate change if they step their due diligence.”
Leaders are pulling ahead with more meaningful due diligence
The analysis shows a core group of industry leaders – Ford, Mercedes, Tesla, Volvo and Volkswagen – are pushing further ahead. While these companies have significant room for improvement, they have achieved a rate of progress that is double that of the remaining 13 companies since the first edition of the Leaderboard.
When it comes to human rights due diligence and responsible sourcing, what separates these better performers from the rest of the industry isn’t just having many of the right commitments and policies in place — it’s implementing more targeted due diligence processes at the mineral and issue-specific level, along with disclosing more granular and disaggregated reporting of progress and policy enforcement in specific contexts.
These leaders are starting to conduct more sophisticated risk assessments, developing tailored strategies for different supply chains, and engaging directly with suppliers and rights holders to address specific harms.
“EV makers are in a position to raise the bar for the mining industry at a critical time, as demand for ‘transition’ minerals surges. We have been pleased to see some companies beginning to engage more meaningfully and directly with upstream suppliers and with affected communities, but there is so much more they could be doing,” said David Pred, Executive Director of Inclusive Development International. “For example, automakers should routinely use site visits to engage with affected communities to understand their concerns, and they should be using their leverage to address harms and enable remedial actions where needed. EV makers also have an opportunity to prevent harm and secure genuinely responsible supply chains by supporting upstream mineral suppliers to negotiate and enter into fair and equitable land access agreements with communities before new projects start.”
Companies acting now are building regulatory resilience
The emerging best practices in this year’s Leaderboard represent what more meaningful implementation of international human rights due diligence frameworks – such as the UN Guiding Principles and OECD Guidelines – looks like in practice. Because incoming regulations, from the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive to the EU Battery Regulation, are grounded in these same frameworks, automakers making genuine progress now will face lower compliance costs tomorrow.
“The EU’s green rules have turned sustainability from a nice-to-have to the price of entry,” said Franziska Gruning, Raw Materials Officer with T&E. “The Batteries Regulation requires carmakers to trace key battery materials and take action on related risks if they want to sell cars in Europe.”
However, despite the progress being made, the Leaderboard shows there is still a long way to go. Some companies, such as Toyota, GAC and SAIC, are still failing on the basics, whilst even industry leaders are still showing patchy performances, with no company reaching 50% of the total scores obtainable in the analysis.
“At a time when critical mineral extraction continues to drive environmental damage and human rights abuses, the poor performance of some automakers is unacceptable. With an industry average score of just 25%, and some companies failing basic due diligence, the human and environmental costs remain severe,” said Eric Ngang, Program Director with Afrewatch International.
Box-ticking audits are not enough. Automakers must go beyond formulaic compliance and scale up targeted, supply chain-specific actions that create real impact. Policymakers, especially in major consumer markets, must enforce strong, mandatory regulations to ensure minimum standards across the industry.
This year’s Leaderboard shows that meaningful progress is achievable and already demonstrated by leading companies. There is no justification for leaving producing countries and affected communities to shoulder the burden of the transition alone.