Chinese electric-vehicle maker XPeng Group has retained MSCI's top AAA environmental, social and governance (ESG) rating for four consecutive years, while its score in S&P Global's 2026 Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) rose to 64, according to a report by Gasgoo carried by D1EV.
The CSA score puts XPeng above the industry average and inside the top 11% of companies assessed. MSCI's ESG ratings cover more than 17,000 issuers worldwide and grade them on a seven-level scale from CCC to AAA. The assessment is designed to measure how well companies sustain long-term development and withstand environmental and social risks, focusing on issues such as product carbon footprint, clean-technology opportunities, product safety and quality, labour management and corporate governance. XPeng received the highest possible score on product carbon footprint and was ranked at an industry-leading level on clean-technology opportunities and labour management.
S&P Global's CSA is one of the most widely cited sustainability benchmarks in financial markets. It evaluates roughly 13,000 companies each year across more than 1,000 data points and serves as a screening basis for global ESG indices including the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. XPeng said climate strategy, product management and corporate governance were the main factors behind the score improvement.
Carbon targets for 2027
XPeng defined its first explicit carbon targets in 2025. By 2027, it aims to cut the average lifecycle carbon emissions of its passenger vehicles - covering raw materials, manufacturing, driving and end-of-life treatment - by 9% compared with the 2023 baseline, and to reduce carbon intensity at its China headquarters and manufacturing bases by 38%. Its long-term ambition is carbon neutrality across both product lifecycles and company operations by 2050.
To reach those goals, XPeng is lightweighting vehicle bodies, cooperating with suppliers on a 'direct aluminum liquid supply' short-process method that delivers molten aluminum straight to production lines instead of casting and re-melting ingots, and increasing the share of clean energy in its operations. In 2025, the per-vehicle product carbon footprint fell 18% from the baseline year and operating carbon intensity fell 29.9%, the company said.
Battery-electric cars eliminate tailpipe emissions, but producing batteries and other components is energy-intensive, and end-of-life treatment adds to the total. Automakers therefore measure a car's footprint from raw material to scrap. That makes product carbon footprint - the area where XPeng scored full marks - a central measure of an EV maker's environmental performance.
ESG ratings from MSCI and S&P Global are widely used by institutional investors as a filter for sustainability-focused portfolios, giving publicly listed automakers a clear incentive to publish verifiable carbon data. XPeng said it will keep benchmarking against international standards, deepen work on the key issues both raters track, and improve the quality of its disclosures.
