Bridgestone bets big on guayule with $42 million investment

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Bridgestone Americas Inc.'s vision to a more sustainable future just got a whole lot bigger.

Like $42 million and 25,000 acres bigger.

The Nashville-based tire maker said Aug. 29 that it is poised to invest $42 million to bolster its efforts for the commercialization of guayule, a desert shrub that it sees as being central to its goals of rolling out a 100-percent sustainable materials tire and achieving carbon neutral operations by 2050.

The funding will help the tire maker establish commercial operations around guayule at the same time it works to grow partnerships with Native American tribes and U.S. farmers to expand the cultivation and harvest of guayule by 25,000 acres.

This year alone, Bridgestone hopes to expand its partnerships to add as many as 350 additional acres of guayule crops.

And because guayule thrives in dry conditions, the tire maker contends that the scaling up of NR production would fall in line with an agreement it made with the Environmental Defense Fund, an non-government organization actively involved in water shortage solutions for the Colorado River, which is used for irrigation in Central Arizona.

"We're extremely bullish on the potential for guayule as a domestic source of strategically critical materials, such as rubber, hypoallergenic latex, building material adhesives and renewable fuel, just to name a few. We're thrilled to be taking this major step toward commercialization before the end of the decade," Nizar Trigui, Bridgestone Americas' chief technology officer and group president of Solutions Businesses, said in a statement.

The tire maker notes that this is the first of more investments that could be on the horizon, beginning as early as 2030.

Establishing a domestic source of natural rubber would be a big step forward for Bridgestone in its quest to achieve sustainable operations and products. The tire maker is not only betting on the ability of guayule to be more renewable than hevea NR—and less prone to disease and fungus—but also shortening the supply chain. That move alone could provide critical decarbonization benefits for the tire maker's big 2050 aims of all-sustainable materials tires and carbon-neutral operations.

"With guayule," Trigui said, "we can reduce the environmental impacts that come with overseas sourcing while also realizing a more sustainable agricultural system for parts of this country that are facing persistent and worsening climate conditions, so it's really something with many benefits for our environment and our economy."

Bridgestone's guayule roots run deep, anchored in research and development efforts that began in 2012 when the company broke ground for its research center in Mesa, Ariz. Since that time, Bridgestone has invested more than $100 million in its research and development of the alternative natural rubber and today operates a 281-acre guayule farm in Eloy, Ariz., in addition to its Mesa research facility.

This year, the tire maker celebrated one of its greatest guayule successes with the introduction of a new-generation Firestone Firehawk racing tire. The sidewall of the tire, which made its debut at the Music City Grand Prix in Nashville Aug. 5-7, was made completely of guayule-derived rubber.