Sustainability, circularity require full tire industry buy-in

SAN ANTONIO—There are a myriad of reasons the tire industry needs to move toward greater sustainability and full circularity.

But for Olivier Brauen, there are two that stand well above the rest.

One is 8. The other, 2.

And both of his daughters—even at their young ages—are inspiring him to think more deeply and more critically about the tremendous challenges the tire industry faces as it works to tackle climate change, achieve sustainability and push for circularity.

"The 8-year-old is asking questions already," Brauen, Michelin North America Inc. vice president of circularity business solutions, said during the first day of the 2023 Smithers Traction Summit. "So we have to make an impact."

The kind of impact that no one person or company can make on its own. Because the challenges are too great, the demands too high.

"We feel like we have to do way more, all together, as an industry," Brauen said. "And it is a symmetry of what we see on the market, even in North America. We see clear shifts, clear inflection points."

Consumers, he said, are demanding more from Michelin and the industry overall. They are putting pressure on tire makers to provide more sustainable products—in material composition, performance and longevity.

Customers are doing the same. OEMs are racing toward the development of circular vehicles, and fleets are seeking greater sustainability from their tires as well.

So Michelin, Brauen said, is fully committed to doing all of those things—rolling out tires that are more sustainable than ever in terms of their make-up, recyclability and performance.

But Michelin also is committed to partnering with others—including competitors—to push the limits of sustainability within the industry.

Because honestly, the planet can't wait.

"We believe that it is very important to accelerate," Brauen said. "We compete with Bridgestone every day for consumers and customers. And that is not the question here. The question is accelerating for the planet side, the environment side."

For Michelin, the vision for more sustainable materials—and ultimately more sustainable products—breaks down into four primary focus areas. Areas the company calls "the four Rs."

• Reduce. Simply, reduce the amount of material in tires.
• Renew. Use renewable materials. And by "renewable," Michelin means the material must be fully replaced within a human lifetime.
• Recycled. Embracing the use of recycled materials.
• Reuse. This is where circularity comes in. Reuse involves finding ways to ensure the lifetime of the tire doesn't end with its service life.

Already, said Russell Shepherd, Michelin North America technical communications director, the company has made some significant strides in all of these areas—but particularly in the recycled and renewable spaces.

Through partnerships, investments and R&D developments of its own, Michelin can take packaging waste and post-consumer plastics and create more sustainable synthetic rubbers and textiles.

"A plastic bottle is a polymer. You break it down into a monomer and then you reincorporate into a polymer and you can make textile materials," Shepherd said. "So that is one way we are trying to take the textile materials in tires and make them more sustainable."

Those are critical steps toward achieving 100-percent sustainable materials tires.

But sustainability is built into procurement, too. And that means working to ensure the sustainability of natural rubber supply chains.

"The nice thing about the tire industry when it comes to sustainability is that we have a huge advantage over other industries," Shepherd said. "Our main component in a tire is what? Rubber. Natural rubber. So you can either get it from rubber plants or there are other sources of that, so that is our huge advantage.

"But there are other components such as synthetic rubber, resins, how we make sure that the steel we use is recycled and the textile materials. That," he said, "is where the challenge is."

Ultimately, by 2050, 100 percent of the materials used in Michelin tires will be sustainable. To get there, the French tire maker has set a short-term goal of achieving 40-percent sustainable materials usage in the production of tires by 2030.

Today, Michelin has reached the 30-percent threshold, and according to Brauen, most of that sustainable content is renewable materials. Just 0.1 percent is recycled content.

But that, he said, will change. Michelin is committed to ensuring it does.

"In terms of recycled material, it is quite limited," Brauen said. "So we will do more."

Globally, the tire maker is doing more. It is investing in the kind of technologies that allow for its tires to be tires again when they reach the end of their service lives.

First, there is Lehigh Technologies. The Atlanta-headquartered, Michelin-owned company is turning ELTs into micronized rubber powders—recycled materials that find homes in brand-new Michelin tires.

"We can put up to 12 percent of MRP in truck retreads and a single-digit percentage in a passenger car (tire)," Brauen said. "Not only does it help impact sustainability, it can help to increase performances in certain applications. So we have better-than-virgin raw material, and now we can reduce the cost because it is an affordable alternative to the virgin raw material."

Lehigh's MRPs have life beyond tires, too, in products like rubber-modified asphalt and industrial rubber products.

And with sustainability in the tire industry and beyond as the driving force, demand for MRPs is growing exponentially. So Lehigh is scaling up to address it, at least, in part. According to Brauen, MRP capacity at Lehigh's Atlanta plant will double to 40,000 metric tons per year once the recently launched expansion project is complete.

Further, Brauen said, Michelin is investing to bring MRP production to Europe.

This is just part of the equation. And it is still not enough.

Michelin also has taken a majority stake in Enviro, a company that—through batch process pyrolysis—transforms ELTs into oils and recovered carbon blacks. The kind of materials that can go back into Michelin tires—or other products.

Demand for these products is growing, Brauen said, within Michelin and beyond. So Enviro is growing, too.

Enviro recently partnered with Antin Partners to scale-up the technology in Europe, first with a plant that has an annual capacity for about 34,500 tires. The ultimate goal is to establish tire recycling infrastructure across Europe that is capable of recycling 1 million metric tons of end-of-life tires annually by 2030.

This is great news, Brauen said. But it is still not enough.

"We need more," he said. "So how do we accelerate together? How do we increase cooperation across a similar value chain, among all the components to catalyze public and private investments?"

How?

You innovate. With humility.

Because it will take a combination of industry ideas, investments and innovations to truly make meaningful change. The kind that impacts an industry for the better and changes the world for the next generation.

"The slope is still pretty challenging," Brauen said. "… We need all of us to push toward the same direction.

"If we just think about past solutions, it will never work. We have to rethink and innovate. We have to unleash innovation and this innovation will come from the industry working together."

When that happens, he said, the tire industry, through its sustainability, can have a real, meaningful impact. The planet, after all, demands it.

And our kids do, too.

"We have to go to this full circularity, hopefully very soon," Brauen said. "I want to be able to tell my two daughters that I was part of that change."