As the Director of Sustainability Strategy for North America in the American Honda Motor Company’s Regional Planning team, James Reeves helps to shape the path forward for Honda to achieve its two 2050 goals: zero impact on the environment and zero traffic fatalities involving a Honda vehicle.

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John: Welcome to another edition of The Impact Podcast. I’m John Shegerian and I’m so excited to have us today. James Reeves, he’s the director of Sustainability Strategy at America Honda Motor Company. Welcome James to the Impact Podcast.

James Reeves: Gosh, thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate it.

John: This is an honor I don’t think Honda’s ever been on before. I don’t think you’ve ever been on before, so it’s really, really great to have you on. James, before we get talking about all the great and important impactful things you and your colleagues are doing in sustainability at Honda, can you talk a little bit about your background, where you grew up, how’d you get on this fascinating journey that you’re on?

James: Yeah. So I have actually moved around a lot in the country. I’m on my seventh state and eighth and ninth football team, depending on how big count. So I’m very confused and grew up a Mets fan. So I’m constantly disappointed… [crosstalk] trying to become a Dodgers fan, which helps because they’re doing well. So I grew up in New Jersey outside of New York and went to undergrad in DC and then found my way over to Chicago before I came here, Southern California, and really appreciated just getting to live in different parts of the country, really kind of understanding the different cultures. A lot of people don’t think of the very different cultures within the United States. I think that’s helping inform kind of even just how I approach business and the social dynamics at work. So yeah. Then went to school in DC where I got a job an internship that turned into my first realtime job that started the whole path down sustainability.

John: What were you studying in college and then what was the first job that you had right out of college?

James: Yeah. I was studying international economics [inaudible] relations and economics and double major, and the role I got was for think tank in DC a lot of those and so reach research based organization, non-partisan. My boss hired me to work on international trade policy, but then she got a grant to look at all the different ways that the US government, the federal system, could promote socially responsible behavior from companies operating overseas. For me that was really fascinating because it was the combination of economics and combination of my personal beliefs of which I kind of boiled down to two.
So the first is I was meant to leave this earth better than I found it.

John: That’s beautiful.

James: Yeah. It’s like the campsite rule of life. I wasn’t a boy scout, but I gladly stole that from them. Then the second is that I happen to just believe, and I’ve seen that the quickest, fastest, most sustainable way to create that change is through, call it capitalism if you want to get philosophical on economics world or just through companies. So that’s been my calling since day one.

John: I love it. Then how many years ago did you join Honda and come out to beautiful California?

James: Yeah. Getting a job offer in December when you’re living in Chicago, for Southern California [inaudible] very easy decision to make. But yeah, those was a little bit over two and a half years ago.

John: Got it. So you move out here, you get the role director of sustainability of strategy for Honda. Now you and I know sustainability still relatively new term in terms of CEO’s been around a long time. CFO’s been a long time, but head of sustainability is about 2020. We’re about 20, 25 years into this max and it could be read very narrowly or widely. What does your role entail at Honda? Is it a wide reading? Is it your mandate or wide mandate? Is it more narrow? Can you describe a little bit your day to day week to week, month to month role at Honda?

James: Yeah, it’s odd because it’s both narrow and wide. So somehow that makes total sense. So we have two 2050 goals. One to have zero impact on the environment, and then the second is to have zero traffic fatalities involving a Honda vehicle.

John: Wow.

James: So within the company, we are particularly in kind of my world narrowly focused on executing the environmental strategy, which I’m sure we’ll talk about, and then I have a peer on the product safety side that is in the same department as me and so we work very closely together. So that’s kind of the narrow side of it. But I was brought in specifically to bring an outside viewpoint because a lot of people at Honda are here for decades. So my boss brought me in to have that new view and to look at sustainability at its broadest. For me, that’s the combination of a Venn diagram of people, planet and prosperity. So that is my wide remit and what I’m involved in making sure that the company is aware of that perspective, and we don’t get too narrowly focused on just our set of environmental goals. There’s other environmental issues we have to look at, there’s social issues, et cetera. So yeah, that’s how both narrow and broad.

John: So on the sustainability side, somewhat more broad and open to everything that’s going on in sustainability as we know that it could be read very broadly when it comes to zero carbon emissions and being good in scope one, two, and three. Then also as the other stuff, of course is more inclusivity, more diversity, and more good things that just make a company better, more resilient and just gives it better decision making when there’s a diverse group of people trying to formulate a path forward. But on the other side though, somewhat more narrow, but somewhat succinct. But by the way I’ve never heard that. I think that’s a fascinating goal, zero fatality. So you have a counterpart, you have the James Reeves who sits in that position, and you two work together?

James: Sure do. Yeah. We worked together, particularly we’re working on an associate engagement program that I think would love to come back to and talk to after the pilot’s done. But yeah, Brian Bausch is a name, and so for both of us is we have this long-term vision for the company that is set from the parent company and from our global CEO. But yet 2050 feels so far away because it is far away. So how do we bring all that work forward? We can’t expect our employees in 2059 to execute that strategy. It is up to us to do that work right now. So how do we facilitate that? And that’s really kind of my job is to, how to facilitate that, not only just within my group, like I can’t execute everything, but how do I get, I’d always say Joe in accounting to look at sustainability and make sure that Joe in accounting feels like he has a role.

John: It makes sense. I want to come back to the 2050 goals in a second, but just for our listeners and viewers to understand, Honda, of course, is one of the great iconic brands on this planet. American Honda had last year annual revenue of 7.2 billion over 30,000 employees, and does most of your business in United States, Mexico, and Canada, and the URL of course, to find James and all his wonderful colleagues at Hondas, www.honda.com. Now, 2050 goals they were created before you joined, or when you were joining or sometime thereafter?

James: Yeah, they were created by our global CEO Toshihiro Mibe and we’re announced in 2022. So just a little bit before I joined. So the environmental strategy is called triple action to zero, and that was very much new and that’s about carbon neutrality including scope3, which is amazing when you consider, we produce 35 million internal combustion engines a year globally. The second triple action is zero pillar is on 100% clean energy. Then the third is on resource circularity. Now on the safety side there’s also three parts to it too, and that’s called safety for Everyone and actually that program’s been around for decades. Honda has a long storied history in promoting safety in our products. But for that strategy, we look at the traffic ecosystem. How can we make the roads themselves physically safer? Then what is the technology in the car to make the cars safer with the surrounding environment? Then the third and environment pillar is the human behind the wheel. How can we make sure that people have the driving skills and the short request of everyone is please buckle your seatbelt. As much as we have heard that message, it is the number one differentiator of whether or not you’ll live or not in a car accident. Your seatbelt is buckled. It goes a very long way. So that’s my soapbox moment for the day.

John: No, it’s an important one, and it sounds obvious that we take it for granted, but like you said it just, I’m glad you repeated it. Is it within the realm, this last week I took a ride first time ever in a Waymo, and I realized the possibility for the first time sitting in that car of autonomous driving, is it possible that many of the Honda vehicles you produce in 2050 can be autonomous and that’s part of what you have to take into account when you’re creating a zero fatality growth goal for 2050, that some of the cars might be autonomous cars?

James: That’s certainly part of it, and the technology that exists today is only going to improve over time and become even more present. But at the same time, the technology won’t change the road designs and the road designs won’t change overnight either. So that’s a long-term conversation that we have to have with a lot of stakeholders, both federal level, state and local level. So we have to keep that in mind. Then driving behaviors, we’re still going to have non-autonomous cars on the road and still going to be a human behind the wheel, and so we have to make sure everyone is skilled to the level that they need to be to make sure that we minimize the risks as much as possible.

John: Do you and your counterpart who now manage these two main goals, which are deeply rooted inside of Honda in terms of zero fatalities by 2050 and also carbon neutrality and by 2050, do you get together and talk about how do we get the whole company, our 30,000 employees to buy into both of these? Because that’s a goal for both. It’s not only just buying into sustainability, it’s buying into also the product safety. So do you share best tips and best practices on communication and how to get more people bought in?

James: Several times a day, and that’s facilitated by the fact that his desk is about 10 feet away from me…

John: Oh, perfect.

James: So turn around and say something. So that’s the frequency, but in terms of substance, yeah, we’re exactly doing that. We’re in a pilot project right now that is too soon to really talk about. But like I mentioned, we can’t wait for the associates in 2049 to execute this, and we have to figure out how to mobilize the 30,000 people we work with to think of new ideas and new revenue streams and new ways of looking at these problems.

John: James, do you produce an annual sustainability report?

James: We do. So the way it works is that’s produced out of our parent company. So they do it on a global level, and they segment the data and some ways including some metrics by North America, and then the way the whole data collection process work is, it is out there in the activity is out at our various plants and locations. Then all the data comes into my team and we do the quality control and assurance and then send that data on up to the parent company.

John: So on a macro basis, do you have a set of requirements for the manufacturers of the parts of your cars, so that way they’re made in a way that satisfies your standards in terms of sustainable production and manufacturing to help make the car, of course, the automobile the best it could be?

James: Yeah, absolutely. We do. It’s called the sustainability supplier excellence for [inaudible] and right now it’s mainly applicable for our direct suppliers. So to think of it as direct suppliers or anything that goes on a car. Then indirect is the helpful category of everything else. So yeah, our direct program has been around for many, many years and I think is quite advanced. Fairly recently we’ve been looking at how can we apply that same framework to our indirect suppliers. But for our direct suppliers, it includes everything from carbon emissions and setting their own internal targets and reduction plans to diversity, equity, inclusion, and then water and waste goals as well.

John: Does that come out of sort of your own playbook of how you then manage your own factories and in terms of sustainable practices, in terms of energy and water and waste diversion in your own factories? Then you take that and then that goes into your requirements for your product manufacturers?

James: Yeah, absolutely. I would say it starts with us, and yeah. So we’re decarbonizing our products and our operations and we are purposefully absolutely limiting any use of offsets in the near term so that we can really focus on decarbonization and working on accelerating clean energy within the company. Then trying to change the materials that we use so that we can work in a circular economy.

John: James, you’ve been in the sustainability field 25 years, and so that really makes you an OG in this industry because like I said earlier, sustainability is still relatively a new term. Where do you see us if- you mentioned the Mets and the Dodgers, and so being a long time suffering Mets fan myself, not so suffering this year but historically suffering, where are we in the baseball game of sustainability? Are we still in the bottom of the first? Are we coming out of the fourth? Where are we in this arc of progress and sustainability? Now that it seems as though the trend is with us to stay of shifting from the linear to circular economy and other trends that a stay, there are other headwinds. Where are we now in your journey and what you’ve seen both backwards and forwards?

James: The good question, and as a former consultant, I love sports analogies. Yeah, I would say we’re in top of the third inning, and guess what? The game finally got interesting.

John: Got it. [inaudible]

James: I would say first 2020 two-ish years of my career there just wasn’t a lot of change in the field. Yes, more and more companies started to really kind of adopt sustainability and sustainable approaches to business. But it’s really in the last five years that we’ve seen an incredible amount of movement and I would say five years ago, I’ll put it this way, five years ago I had a new graduate from undergrad approach me and ask for career advice and my advice was to approach this field with caution. Because there was limited more senior positions. There wasn’t a lot of movement both in regulations but now my advice is actually this is a really cool career to get into, and it’s very dynamic, and there’s a lot of different career paths that you could take. Because before it was kind of like strategy and operations and communications, those were the two main paths. But now there’s a whole list of different ways that you can go and that’s really exciting. That’s why the game just started to get interesting and I’m excited for what’s to come.

John: James, how many counterparts do you have around the world at Honda that are the leads, directors of sustainability in different continents or regions that you get to collaborate with and share best practices with?

James: Yeah, so one of the things I like about Honda is that it is a very flat organization, and then we’re very integrated. So the real short answer to your question is, I don’t know, because we are that flat and that integrated. My title is director of Sustainability strategy, but internally it means nothing. If I have a colleague, I can’t even look up what their title is in our internal systems because we purposefully don’t want to be a hierarchal culture and that’s why I’m actually wearing, we call these Honda Whites, it’s a white lab coat.

John: I like it.

James: Throughout all of our manufacturing plants, everyone globally has these white lab coats, and that was set by Mr. Honda himself, who wanted to make sure all of us, including the executives were at the same level and we didn’t create this kind of hierarchy. So it’s an example of how flat we are. But within North America we have hundreds of people working on our environmental strategy. So that includes everything from the environmental regulations of our plants to sustainability strategy like myself, to executing our triple action and zero strategy. Then globally, it just depends on each country and how big that market is. But there are a lot of people and that’s one of the things that is really cool about working for a global company.

John: I know you live and work now in California, do you travel a lot to look at different opportunities in sustainability in different areas of the world with regards to automobile manufacturing?

James: Yeah, I would say I travel, but not a ton, which is great because I love to travel, but I also love being at home. Then this past October we had a sustainability summit, which was the first time we’ve done it since COVID, really? So all the environmental folks, leaders from around the world came into to Tokyo, and then we went to plant in Suzuka, Japan, a couple hours south. So got to go to Japan for the first time.

John: I was just going to ask, have you been there before? Because I wanted to hear your impressions.

James: Well, I’ll put it this way, before going, anyone I talked to had been to Japan, none of them had a bad experience.

John: Oh, yeah, I agree.

James: So my expectations were really high, and I get in there and it was a long trip, so it was over a couple of weekends, and my expectations were high, but it blew through the roof. It’s just such a cool country, cool culture. Tokyo itself is incredible. So yeah, I was really impressed and looking forward to this October to go back again.

John: Oh, so the sustainability strategy meeting again, will be there again in…

James: Yeah, absolutely. Yep.

John: Oh, now you go back and you already have the first time underneath your belt, so now you can go back and I’m sure you have the favorite restaurant you want to go back to, and other places you want to go back to. So that’s wonderful. That’s just wonderful. How many people attended that kind of conference? How many sustainability people from Honda internal came to that conference to share?

James: Yeah, it was a couple dozen. Some around the world, some from Japan itself with the parent company. So, yeah.

John: That’s great. That’s wonderful. When is your sustainability report typically put out at the parent company? Is that early in the year towards April, or is it later in the year typically?

James: Yeah, we’re about early-ish, mid-year so coming out fairly soon, and we actually published two reports. One is an integrated report that follows what used to be the IR framework which I think is a really important statement of how seriously Honda is taking sustainability reporting. Then the second is our ESG data book. Is the typical report that you’ll see for particularly the investor audience, but both reports have information on our whole environmental strategy unit.

John: James, not a day goes by where we don’t read or don’t hear more and more about AI and robotics, how much is AI and robotics going to play in the future of sustainability, and als in both your 2050 goals, zero fatalities, and also your sustainability goals for 2050?

James: Well, I think every company needs to be looking at AI and how to apply it, and certainly we were doing something that our IT department has been pushing us to do is to find applications for AI in our work. Even if it doesn’t seem obvious up front, like, how can we use AI effectively and certainly it will play a role in what is in the vehicles both in terms of safety which really a lot of this autonomous driving really is a form of ai and we were the first company before any of the other ones to actually put in a level three car on the road. It was in Japan. So yeah, I think it is going to play a role. I think there’s a lot of different applications for data analysis as well as of course things like what is the technology in a vehicle? So yeah, every company needs to be looking at it and certainly we are.

John: What are you most excited about coming up in the sustainability people? I have this wonderful opportunity sitting where I sit to interview what I think is one of the greatest fraternities on the planet, directors of sustainability, chief sustainability officers, chief impact officers, and I know you’re always of two minds. You’re really happy about the accomplishments that you’re about to report in this year’s sustainability report. But you’re always looking to the future because sustainability has no finish line. What are you most excited about in the next 24 months to come, James with regards to what you’re working on with your team and colleagues to add Honda?

James: Yeah, shameless plug, it’s our new zero series that we’ll launch sometime in 2026. We revealed it at CES and this is one of the cars in it. It’s called the Saloon, and they brought it onto our campus a couple of weeks ago. So I got to see it in person. It is just a really cool car. Then, yeah, actually the robot here his name is Osimo. So it was a project from a couple decades ago that we created this robot, and so we decided to sunset him a few years ago so that we could focus on battery electric vehicles, but we’re naming the operating system within the car Osimo after to acknowledge that kind of heritage. So, yeah, I think we have a couple of zero emission vehicles out there now. The Honda Prologue, the Acura ZDX and then a hydrogen car that’s available in California only, and those are really, really cool. But the zero series is when we just wiped the slate completely clean and said, if we had to design a car from scratch, start at zero, how would we approach it? So I think you’ll see these in our designs, our concept cars that are soon to be production models that it’s a really kind of a fresh approach to what should a Honda vehicle be in the next generation of vehicles.

John: I love it. So that comes out next year, and it’s an EV, is that a full on EV?

James: EV, yep, and then there’s a companion on the Acura side as well. So yeah, it’s all developed in-house.

John: I never saw that car. That is just gorgeous. That is a gorgeous car. James, you’ve been doing this a long time. How do you get inspired? Do you go to other colleagues in the automobile industry? Do you look outside of the automobile industry, or do you find other forms of inspiration for the important and impactful work that you’re doing?

James: Yeah. I would say a little bit of both in industry and out of industry. I think there’s a lot of lessons that are applicable from other industries that you can bring into your own, and I think that’s important. So sustainable Brands is a conference held every fall and so I like going to that conference and just breaking out of the silos that you have if you only work within in your own industry. A lot of what I get inspiration from are the changes that we’ve seen in the industry that I talked about before, over the last five years. So I think back to how I’ve seen it evolve and I think that’s what’s really exciting is and what gets me motivated, that it feels like there’s a lot of momentum within sustainability despite changes that are going on presently, I think companies that are really looking at it are trying to be a sustainable company and have a multi-decade play. So I think that’s what’s really cool is to see how much we’re adjusting to address the needs of the marketplace at the time, but also with that long-term vision in minds that we can’t steer too far away from that long-term vision.

John: Go back to your last two years. What’s the greatest lesson you learned? What was the hardest challenge you had to figure out in the first two years at Honda?

James: Oh, it’s the analogy of drinking from the fire hose. I have no engineering background, and so I work in that environment where I work with a lot of engineers who are incredibly smart and smarter than me and so learning about how they approach problem solving, learning about the deep history of Honda, learning about all the many, many acronyms that exist in every company, but seemed particularly stressed here. So I think a lot of it was just learning the culture here. It’s a very different company because people have been here for 30 years, for 40 years, and I knew one guy for 50 and having that institutional knowledge is extremely important. Then with that, there are certain ways of working that I had to adapt to and I had to adapt to in a way that I also wasn’t sacrificing what made me, me.

John: Right.

James: Two years into it, I think I’ve striked to that balance of really being able to speak kind of Honda speak, but also bringing myself to work as well.

John: That’s awesome. That’s just awesome. Well, James, I love the work you’re doing, and we’re so grateful for that work. But thank you for your time today to come on the Impact podcast. I want to have you come back when you have some other announcements on some of the beta testing and some of the things you’re going to do. Then we can show off a live version. We can have the live version parked behind you of that new beautiful the Zero car behind you. I love that car. He’s James Reeves. You can find him and all of his colleagues that are doing important work in sustainability at Honda at www.honda.com. James, thanks again for your time today. Most important, thanks to all the work you and your colleagues do at Honda to make the world a better place.

James: Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. Really appreciate it.

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