For South Africa’s automotive manufacturing sector, the energy conversation is changing. 

For several years, much of the focus was understandably on continuity. With an unstable electricity supply threatening production, manufacturers needed to keep their plants running. Generators, backup power and other interventions became operational necessities. 

Energy resilience remains important, but through our recent engagements with automotive manufacturers, BT Industries is seeing the conversation broaden significantly. The focus is increasingly shifting from simply protecting production to considering how energy, carbon reduction, operational efficiency and sustainability can contribute to the long-term competitiveness of the business. 

For an industry with significant exposure to international markets, this matters. As global supply chains continue to decarbonise and environmental requirements become more deeply embedded in procurement and investment decisions, South African manufacturers need to consider what this changing landscape could mean for their competitiveness towards 2030 and beyond. 

“The conversation we are having today is very different to the one manufacturers were having a few years ago,” says Hilton Loring, Strategic Growth Executive at BT Industries. “Previously, the immediate concern was keeping the plant running. That remains important, but now we are talking about what comes next. How do we use energy more efficiently? How do we reduce carbon? How do we measure it? How do we report it? And, ultimately, how do we make sure that the business remains competitive?” 

These are questions BT Industries is increasingly exploring with CEOs, CFOs, sustainability leaders and operational teams within the automotive sector – and those engagements are helping to shape our own understanding of where the opportunity lies. 

The Pieces Are Often Already There 

One of the most interesting observations emerging from these conversations is that many manufacturers are not starting from zero. 

Different elements of the journey may already exist across the organisation. There may be an ESG or sustainability strategy in place. Energy interventions may already have been implemented. Energy data may be available through different systems. Operations teams may be focused on efficiency and continuity, while finance is considering investment priorities and sustainability teams are working towards environmental commitments and reporting requirements. 

Individually, these initiatives can all create value. The bigger opportunity is to understand how they fit together. 

“We are finding that organisations often have portions of the strategy already in place,” Hilton explains. “The opportunity is to step back and understand what the business is ultimately trying to achieve, where the gaps sit, and how those individual initiatives can be brought together into a practical competitiveness strategy.” 

This is where Solutioneering becomes relevant. 

As explored in the first article in this series, Solutioneering is BT Industries’ discovery-led approach to understanding the customer’s challenge before determining the solution. It is deliberately not product-led. We begin with the outcome the customer needs to achieve and then identify the combination of capabilities, partners, commercial structures and implementation requirements needed to get there. 

Applied to energy and sustainability, that means coming up a level from the technical solution and starting with the broader commercial objective. The question is not simply what should be installed, but what the business needs to achieve in order to become more resilient, efficient, sustainable and competitive. 

What does the organisation need to achieve over the next five or ten years? What are its greatest energy and operational risks? Where are the inefficiencies? What sustainability commitments need to be met? What information will customers and export markets increasingly require? Which interventions will make a meaningful difference? And how can those interventions be funded in a way that makes commercial sense? 

The answer will be different for every manufacturer. 

Bringing Energy, Sustainability and Commercial Outcomes Together 

Once the required outcome is properly understood, the individual components can be brought together around it. 

The opportunity is to create an integrated roadmap that connects energy resilience and efficiency with carbon reduction, measurement, reporting, funding and, ultimately, business competitiveness. The technical solution remains an important part of that roadmap, but it is not the starting point. It exists to support the broader commercial outcome. 

This thinking is supported by the experience represented within BT Industries’ renewable-energy ecosystem. The credentials brought together through BTI and its supply partners include the development of long-term energy and sustainability strategies, renewable-energy and battery-storage programmes, large-scale efficiency initiatives and integrated sustainability projects that have delivered measurable commercial and environmental outcomes. 

A telecommunications company project referenced within BTI’s renewable-energy credentials is a useful example. The requirement was not simply for a renewable-energy installation, but for a long-term sustainability and energy strategy spanning a national operation. The resulting programme incorporated an ESG framework, sustainability journey map, renewable energy, battery storage and energy-efficiency interventions, with projected revenue savings of approximately R4.5 billion over ten years and carbon reductions exceeding 180,000 tonnes CO₂e. 

The significance of examples such as this is that they demonstrate what can be achieved when energy and sustainability are approached as part of a broader commercial strategy, with the different elements aligned around measurable business outcomes. 

Data Gives Us a Different Kind of Opportunity 

Technology is also changing what is possible. 

Where the historic energy conversation was dominated by physical infrastructure – generators, solar installations and backup power – organisations today have access to far more sophisticated information about how energy is being consumed and where efficiencies can be created. 

Smart metering, artificial intelligence, machine learning and digital energy-management platforms create the potential to bring information from across an operation into a much more useful management environment. 

One of the concepts BTI is exploring with the market is what we refer to as an energy and sustainability “cockpit”: a consolidated view through which an organisation can better understand its energy use, efficiencies and carbon performance, track progress against targets and consolidate information required for ESG and sustainability reporting. 

Importantly, that information has value across the organisation. 

The CEO can see progress against the broader strategy. The CFO can understand investment, savings and return. Sustainability leaders have access to better information for carbon management and reporting, while operational teams can identify inefficiencies and opportunities for improvement. 

Rather than sustainability existing as a separate initiative or annual reporting exercise, the data starts to become part of how the business is managed. 

Building a Business Case That Works 

There is another lesson emerging strongly through these conversations: the technical solution is only one part of the equation. 

Automotive manufacturing is capital intensive. Every investment competes with another priority, and even where the business case for energy or sustainability interventions is compelling, the upfront capital required can become a barrier to implementation. 

For that reason, funding cannot be an afterthought. It needs to be considered as part of the commercial proposition from the outset. 

BT Industries’ approach is to bring the appropriate capabilities together, including strategic energy and sustainability advisory expertise, technical and implementation capability, carbon-management considerations and access to funded solutions. 

This creates the opportunity to move the conversation beyond what should we install? towards a much more useful question: what are we trying to achieve, and what is the most commercially viable route to getting there? 

That distinction matters because the strongest sustainability strategy is not necessarily the one with the most ambitious list of projects. It is the one that can be commercially justified, implemented, measured and sustained. 

Sustainability Is Increasingly a Competitiveness Conversation 

The more we engage with the automotive sector, the clearer it becomes that energy and sustainability cannot be separated from the broader conversation about South African manufacturing competitiveness. 

Reducing energy consumption can lower operating costs. Improving resilience can protect production. Better data can expose inefficiencies. Reducing carbon intensity can help manufacturers respond to changing expectations within international supply chains. More effective measurement can strengthen ESG reporting and provide management with better information on which to base future decisions. 

Viewed independently, these are energy, sustainability, operational and financial considerations. 

Viewed together, they become a competitiveness strategy. 

This is also why BT Industries is approaching these conversations as a learning process rather than arriving with a predetermined answer. Automotive manufacturers understand their businesses, their customers and their operational realities better than we ever could. Our role is to bring a different perspective to the table: to listen, understand the outcome, identify where the gaps sit and then bring together the capabilities required to solve for them. 

That is Solutioneering in practice. 

As an Integrated Distribution Partner, BT Industries does not need to own every component of the solution. Our role is to understand how those components fit together and bring the right capabilities around the table to create a commercially viable outcome. 

For South African automotive manufacturers looking towards 2030, the challenge is therefore bigger than meeting an ESG requirement or implementing another energy project. 

It is about remaining competitive. 

And increasingly, that requires a commercial strategy that brings the whole picture together. 

Confidence of Supply. Peace of Mind. Always. 

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