BiGS Actionable Intelligence:
Harvard Business School’s Institute for Business in Global Society (BiGS) invited Omar Vargas, vice president and head of global public policy for General Motors, to participate in the BiGS Global Leadership Roundtable on industrial policy in the Washington D.C. area. Barbara DeLollis, BiGS’ head of communications, caught up with Vargas during the event to discuss the company’s policy goals and strategic outlook as it transitions to an electric future. The transcript has been edited for length, clarity, and style.
Can you tell us what smart climate policy looks like to you?
Sure. Policies that support the product portfolio transformation that we have underway in General Motors toward an all-electric future. That means a public/private partnership to help provide the capital support for that transformation, to help provide the market development, to provide an infrastructure for EV charging, and support for building a sustainable, resilient, and secure supply chain to support American auto manufacturing.
How has climate change legislation changed how you do your job as head of public policy?
We've moved from the legislative war to implementation. What does implementation look like? It is us taking our insights as a manufacturing company and our experiences about the market, and helping to inform and educate the agencies about what types of implementation policies will work and those that may not work.
Tell us about your electric vehicle (EV) goals.
General Motors has committed to electrifying 50% of its fleet by 2030. By 2035, 100% of our automotive fleet, for passenger and light-duty vehicles, will be electric.
What are the biggest challenges that you see to meeting your goals with the EV rollout?
What's important for EV adoption is charging infrastructure. General Motors has committed $750 million in private capital to the development of EV charging stations. In partnership with our dealers and other community partners, we're looking at the best places to install EV charging stations. The anxiety around EV charging is an inhibitor to EV adoption.
There's a lot of public investment going into EV charging through the federal government and being led through state and local governments. We're confident that in the next couple of years we're going to have a vigorous EV charging network in the United States.
What are some of your priorities regarding federal policy in the United States?
Helping to ensure that the North American supply chain is super strong for automotive today and remains super strong for automotive in the future with zero-emission vehicles. We need to ensure that the North American automotive supply chain remains globally competitive.
Has this new era of climate policy changed the way you think organizationally?
What I find really invigorating about General Motors is that it brings different disciplines together to ensure that we are developing a coherent public policy strategy. It is about educating policymakers about our perspectives and what works and what may not work
Where do human rights fit into the work that you're doing?
Human rights are part of our sustainability commitment. We have a supply chain policy. We have compliance reviews to ensure that our suppliers adhere to our policies.
Can you talk to us about how the regulations are changing in the European Union (EU) and what compliance might look like?
The regulatory environment in the EU is innovative. It’s progressive. An important concept is battery recycling. We need to ensure that recycling policy considers what is technologically feasible today, while also being able to absorb and adopt technologies that may come in the future.
The electric vehicle battery is fascinating. You've got about an 8-to-10-year life in the vehicle and another decade of use afterward. There’s still a great use for that battery in supplying energy to a home. You can have it as a standby generator of power. That’s a great way to give that battery a second life.
What advice would you have for other business leaders who need to convince their board or C-suite executives that it's time to address societal issues?
It comes back to what's the business case. As the market changes and consumer sentiment focuses on important concepts like sustainability or human rights, a business must consider that.