Giovanni Tronchetti Provera, Pirelli’s Senior Vice President for Sustainability and Future Mobility, said: “Before even reaching the road, sustainable mobility begins with raw materials. The star ∗ in the name indicates that the new tyre meets the BMW Group’s strict performance requirements, including particularly low rolling resistance and noise level. From there, the tyres are delivered to BMW Group Plant Spartanburg, around 370 km away, and mounted on the BMW X5 Plug-in Hybrid. To earn this certification, Pirelli adapted its US plant in Rome, Georgia, to produce tyres using FSC-certified natural rubber and rayon. The new 22-inch P ZERO ∗ tyre has now become the world’s first tyre to receive the coveted FSC label. The organisation, whose well-known logo is already established in the wood and paper industry, also applies this standard to products made of natural rubber. Small label, big impactĪs an independent organisation, FSC has developed an internationally recognised and demanding certification standard in recent years that is used worldwide for environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable management of the forests. Natural rubber’s high elasticity and sturdiness currently make it irreplaceable for tyre production. Agreeing uniform social and environmental growing conditions with these millions of small individual farms is therefore a major challenge.īy far the largest share of natural rubber grown worldwide goes into tyre production. In the so-called rubber belt across the tropical regions, they run farms of between one and two hectares in size under a wide variety of different conditions. About six million small farmers worldwide are responsible for over 80% of the world’s natural rubber cultivation. Natural rubber is the basic material for many products we use in our daily lives, such as boots and mattresses. In this way, we are helping preserve biodiversity and forests to counteract climate change.” The use of tyres made of certified natural rubber is a pioneering achievement for our industry. “We have been committed to improving cultivation of natural rubber and increasing transparency in the supplier network since 2015.
“As a premium manufacturer, we aspire to lead the way in sustainability and take responsibility,” said Dr Andreas Wendt, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG responsible for Purchasing and Supplier Network. Certification of the rubber plantations and the complex supply chain for natural rubber and rayon takes place in accordance with the strict standards of the independent Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The company will source 22-inch tyres in the first instance exclusively from Pirelli and, from August of this year, will use them in the BMW X5 xDrive45e Plug-in-Hybrid (fuel consumption combined: 1.7-1.2 l/100km (WLTP), 2.1-1.6 l/100 km (NEDC) power consumption combined: 27.7-24.3 kWh/100 km (WLTP), 25.2-23.5 kWh/100 km (NEDC) CO2 emissions combined: 39-27 g/km (WLTP), 47-37 g/km (NEDC)). The BMW Group is stepping up its activities in the field of sustainability, becoming the first automotive manufacturer worldwide to equip its cars with tyres using certified sustainable natural rubber and rayon, a wood-based material used to strengthen the tyres.