What is Enliten?: How Bridgestone's building products around sustainable solutions

ATLANTA—For as long as vehicles need roadways, pathways, tarmacs and even landing pads, Bridgestone Americas Inc. will be there moving them forward.

More sustainably and without compromise.

That's a promise that the tire maker has built into Enliten, a suite of technologies that it is counting on to redefine its products and their performances for a new generation and its more sustainable mobility landscape.

"I tell people this all the time: Until everything flies, it rolls," said Bridgestone Americas Communications Director Davis Adams-Smith. "And we are the world's largest tire and rubber company, so while everything rolls, we have a major stake in making sure that we can do this responsibly."

When it comes to making tires more responsibly, Bridgestone is counting on Enliten. Already, the tire maker has touted the capabilities of its Enliten innovation through the rollouts of the Turanza EV and Potenza Sport AS.

And that is just the start.

Bridgestone says that by the end of the decade, 90 percent of its portfolio—from two wheels to 18 wheels, on-road sports cars and off-road mining tires—will feature Enliten technology.

But what does that mean? What is Enliten really?

Think of Enliten as the culmination of all of the tire maker's biggest and most successful ideas. Ideas that are pushing the limits of sustainability and product performance.

"Enliten, put simply, is maximum performance (and) maximum sustainability. Those are the two things that Enliten focuses on," Adams-Smith said. "So safety and performance and sustainability are all the things that we are looking at with these (technologies.) It is everything from polymer science and chemical science to new compounds, new tread patterns and everything in between. There are a lot of things that fall into this."

So yes, Enliten encompasses a lot of technologies. And as Bridgestone continues to innovate around sustainability and performance, the technologies in that Enliten toolbox will multiply.

And some of those innovations you'll hear more about than others.

Take PeakLife, for instance. The polymeric technology debuted with Turanza EV, playing a key role in the durability and longevity of the product. PeakLife allows silica to better bond with the synthetic rubber in a compound, ultimately providing lower rolling resistance and greater resistance to wear.

The result, Bridgestone said, is better performance—particularly with wet grip—fuel economy/range and tire life.

PeakLife is one of the Enliten tools, but far from the only one. What is does, though, is embody the spirit of the Enliten vision.

"It is really about making sure that we are making tires well, so that your carbon footprint is smaller by accident," Adams-Smith said.

And that—right there—is the heart of Bridgestone's renewed focus.

Bridgestone is consistently working to make the most sustainable products possible, so you don't have to think about how sustainable your tires are.

"We are targeting 100-percent carbon neutrality, and we are well on our way to our goals in 2050," Adams-Smith said. "… Ultimately, our goal, especially as we are making tires and moving into the future of our product lines, is making sure you are getting the tire that you love. One that is doing everything that you want it to do, whether it is track performance or off-road or sublime comfort on the highway. We are doing it in a way that is super-, super-conscious of the world that we live in and the fact that there are finite resources."