case study
Navigating Circularity in the Automotive Sound Systems Industry
Victor Chartier
The automotive industry is undergoing a profound transformation. Electrification, regulatory pressure, and increasing sustainability expectations are reshaping industry priorities. For a premium supplier of automotive sound systems, this translated into a renewed focus on the environmental footprint of their components that are seamlessly integrated into their customers’ vehicles.
Sub-components such as rare earth magnets, glues, and plastics quickly rose to the top of the sustainability agenda. While the client had already launched several circularity initiatives across their manufacturing sites in Western Europe, South America, and East Asia, they faced a new imperative: to determine whether circularity and related concerns (e.g., microplastics) were genuinely material within the broader context of European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS).
Challenge
The client's primary challenge was twofold. First, they needed to perform their first Double Materiality Assessment (DMA) under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Second, and perhaps more critically, they had to reconcile differing stakeholder expectations and cultural nuances across globally distributed teams.
Though internal awareness of circularity was growing, alignment on its strategic value varied across functions and regions. For instance, there were significant differences in how environmental impact and financial risks were perceived by departments such as Sales, Finance, and Product Development. Bridging these perceptual gaps required not just technical tools, but also deep facilitation and cultural sensitivity.
The process helped embed sustainability not as a checkbox exercise, but as a strategic lever for innovation, risk mitigation, and competitive differentiation.
Approach
BrightWolves partnered with the client to co-design a DMA process that could scale globally while remaining adaptable to local realities. The engagement focused on three core pillars:
1. Co-Creation of Circularity Templates
Together with the client, we developed a suite of DMA templates tailored to their organizational structure. These tools facilitated:
Efficient data collection across functional and geographic lines
Objective stakeholder interviews
Structured workshops to drive consensus on material topics
Our method ensured insights were drawn with an acute awareness of industry-specific constraints such as the use of rare earth elements, hazardous glues, and plastic-derived microplastics.
2. Cross-Functional and Cross-Geographic Stakeholder Engagement
We brought together diverse voices from Sales to Finance, and regions from South America to East Asia. These inclusive sessions highlighted both shared challenges and contextual differences in:
Regulatory pressures (e.g., chemical regulation disparities between Europe and Latin America)
Operational and market conditions
Cultural approaches to sustainability and compliance
Several misalignments surfaced, such as diverging views between Sales and customers on the reversibility of environmental impacts, and between Finance teams and investors on the financial materiality of sustainability issues.
Facilitating open conversations allowed the team to bridge these gaps and co-create a robust, credible materiality map.
Impact
The project resulted in:
A modular, reusable toolkit for DMA implementation, ready for future assessments across new business units and regions
Improved alignment on sustainability priorities across geographies and functions, enhancing internal coherence
A deeper organizational awareness of how materiality perceptions vary, laying the foundation for more strategic decision-making
More importantly, the process helped embed sustainability not as a checkbox exercise, but as a strategic lever for innovation, risk mitigation, and competitive differentiation. In a material-intensive sector like automotive sound systems, embracing circularity enables firms to stay ahead of regulatory demands while preserving product excellence and brand integrity.
Summary
A sound systems supplier partnered with BrightWolves to assess the materiality of circularity under CSRD requirements.
We co-designed tailored templates, facilitated global stakeholder engagement, and reconciled differing views across regions and functions.
This resulted in a scalable DMA toolkit, stronger alignment on sustainability priorities, and deeper awareness of how material issues vary across the business.
The company is now positioned to use circularity as a strategic lever for innovation and compliance in a changing regulatory landscape.