Michelin on track with product performance goals

PARIS — Group Michelin is aiming to improve the performance of its products by at least 10 percent by 2020 compared with the 2010 baseline, the French tire maker disclosed during an investors' presentation in Paris June 7.

Michelin said it had managed to improve the performance of its products by 7.6 percent at year-end 2017 and is on track to achieve the 10-percent target.

Among the goals the company has set along these lines, it aims to save nearly 800 million gallons of fuel on the life of tires, reducing CO2 emissions by more than 8 million metric tons vs. the 2010 baseline.

That target too, it said, is on track as the company has improved the rolling resistance of light vehicle tires and truck tries.

Additionally, the company is planning to develop circular economy further by producing tires with 30-percent renewable material content or recycled tires.

"At the end of 2017, the average rate of renewable or recycled materials in Michelin tires were estimated at 29 percent, in line with the trajectory to be at 30 percent by 2020," the company noted.

Additionally, Michelin said it aimed to halve the environmental footprint — known as Michelin environmental footprint (MEF) — of its production sites by 2020.

Of that, in particular, a 38-percent energy efficiency compared with the 2005 baseline is on the agenda.

According to Michelin, the company so far has managed to improve the MEF at its sites by 47.3 percent vs. 2005, while energy efficiency at the sites has improved by 30 percent over the same time frame.

Michelin also recently unveiled ambitious plans — at the Movin'On conference in Montreal — to produce tires made with 80-percent "sustainable' materials that are 100-percent recyclable within the next 30 years.

Michelin said it was investing in advanced recycling technologies to be able to increase the content of such materials in tires to 80 percent by 2048.

Tires, it said, are made using 28-percent sustainable materials: 26-percent bio-sourced materials — natural rubber and sunflower oil — and 2-percent recycled materials, such as steel or recycled powdered tires.