The “most sustainable” Continental tyre to date will arrive next month. With up to 65 per cent renewable, recycled and mass balance certified materials, the Continental UltraContact NXT “combines a high share of sustainable materials with maximum safety and performance.”
With the changeover of three facilities this month, Bridgestone is powering all but one of its tyre and raw material plants in Japan with 100% renewable purchased electricity. The Kurume, Amagi and Saga sites are the latest where Bridgestone is sourcing renewable power. A total of ten plants in Japan now run on purchased renewable electricity, the earliest having changed to renewable sources in July 2021.
It’s hard not to love a superlative, so thanks to Sumitomo Rubber Industries for sharing that its tyre factory in Thailand now possesses the world’s largest rooftop solar panel array. As of 1 February 2023, the set-up at the Sumitomo Rubber (Thailand) plant is the world’s largest rooftop solar panel array installed at a single facility.
Truck and bus tyre production at Bridgestone’s factory in Thailand will result in lower CO2 emissions in future thanks to the installation of a solar power generator at the site. Bridgestone Tire Manufacturing (Thailand) Co., Ltd. (BTMT) has brought the first phase of its solar power generation project into operation at the Chonburi facility, with 2,160 solar panels installed on roofing delivering a total capacity of 1 MWp.
Goodyear tyre factories in France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland and Turkey will soon adopt 100 per cent renewable energy in the first step of a multiple-phase plan to solely procure renewable energy in all Goodyear facilities across Europe, Middle East and Africa by the end of 2022. The tyre maker will review other locations, such as Goodyear in South Africa and Cooper Tire plants in Serbia and UK, in a second phase.
Bridgestone Corporation has taken a significant step towards powering its tyre manufacturing facilities in Japan with electricity from renewable sources. Third-party sourced electricity used within the Hikone, Tosu, Shimonoseki, and Kitakyushu plants now comes from hydro, geothermal, solar and wind energy.
As of the 2020 fiscal year, Continental is procuring all of the electricity for its production sites around the world from renewable energy sources. Confirmation of this milestone comes via a reasonable assurance report by auditor KPMG.
All electricity consumed in Bridgestone’s European locations now comes from renewable sources. The tyre maker reports that all its European tyre plants, the European R&D Centre and Proving Ground in Rome, Italy, its pre-cured retreading materials plant in Lanklaar, Belgium, textile plant in Usansolo, Spain, and Bridgestone EMIA headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, are now powered by electricity from 100 per cent renewable sources.
Finnish manufacturer Nokian Tyres says it wants to develop and present a concept tyre entirely produced from renewable and recycled tyres by 2025. It hasn’t yet shared specific project details, but it appears this 100 per cent eco-friendly concept may well be a winter tyre. Nokian’s announcement creates this impression, at any rate.
In 2018, Bridgestone Europe announced that three of its tyre plants in Spain – Bilbao, Puente San Miguel and Burgos – had begun sourcing 100 per cent of their electricity from renewable sources. This programme has been extended to other facilities in the region, and the company shares that the Tatabanya plant in Hungary and Stargard and Poznan plants in Poland will be moving to 100 per cent green electricity.
Pirelli says its tyres will be become safer and greener in the coming five years, and will come to market more quickly, too. The company has outlined its performance targets for the Pirelli passenger vehicle range within its new 2020-2022 Industrial Plan, which was approved on Wednesday
CDP, the UK-based non-profit global environmental disclosure platform formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project, has named Bridgestone Corporation to this year’s Water A List. More than 700 companies were assessed by CDP, and Bridgestone one of only 73 companies named to the A List.
Despite developments in renewable energy, it will take 50 years for electric cars to impact global oil demand in transport, according to Dr Mamdouh G Salameh, professor of energy economics at the ESCP Europe Business School.
The partnership between Michelin and Amyris to develop and commercialise isoprene sourced by renewable feedstocks has now been in place for three years, and Michelin announced today that a third company has joined the collaboration. Thermoplastic resins and biopolymers producer Braskem will work together with the other two companies to develop a technology that enables plant sugars, such as those found in Brazilian sugarcane or cellulosic feedstocks, to be used to produce renewable isoprene. The addition of Braskem is expected to accelerate the technology’s industrialisation.
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