Porsche joins Tyre Stewardship Australia

PORSCHE Cars Australia (PCA) has echoed its parent company’s updated environmental and energy policy by committing every Porsche Centre in Australia to sign on to Tyre Stewardship Australia for tyre recycling.

The commitment ensures all end-of-life tyres from all Porsche Centres will be collected and disposed of by a Tyre Stewardship Australia (TSA) accredited recycler, in addition to tyres from PCA’s car fleet including those from the Porsche Track Experience program.

TSA estimates that the equivalent of 56 million used tyres are generated from passenger vehicles in Australia every year but only 10 per cent are recycled.

It has developed new markets for tyre-derived products, committing $6 million to projects that use end-of-life tyres in new value-added products.

TSA CEO Lina Goodman said that although more than half of Australia’s used tyres are recycled, upcycled or reprocessed into other products, the equivalent of 27 million car tyres are wasted each year.

“These often end up in landfill, stockpiles or are exported overseas,” she said.

Of those tyres that are recycled, uses include soft-fall matting for playground surfaces; road surfacing; commercial flooring; rubber and tile adhesive; brake pads; and as an alternative fuel to produce cement.

PCA CEO and managing director Sam Curtis said “sustainability is an essential pillar of our corporate strategy at Porsche”.

“The global approach to sustainability at Porsche is holistic, working in all fields of action: ecological, economic and social.

“This tyre recycling initiative is one of many steps we are taking here in Australia to continually enhance our environmental and social responsibility efforts.”

The recycling commitment in Australia follows Porsche AG in June this year adopting a new environmental and energy policy.

Porsche AG chairman of the board of management Oliver Blume said the updated policy adopted clear rules of conduct.

“We are clearly committed to the Paris Climate Agreement, use resources sparingly and, for example, continuously reduce our water and energy consumption in order to sustainably reduce the environmental impact of our business activities,” he said.

“Particular attention is paid to the careful use of resources: throughout the entire value-added chain, Porsche is working to continuously reduce the impact of all products and activities and, as an example, its Taycan factory in Zuffenhausen has CO2-neutral production.”

Mr Blume said a holistic approach was important to the company.

“This means that not only the emissions of its own production are assessed, but also the entire product lifecycle of the vehicles – from material extraction to recycling,” he said.

Porsche member of the board of management responsible for production and logistics Albrecht Reimold said: “The hallmarks of our products are efficiency, high quality and a long lifetime.”

“The economical use of resources is part of our identity and an incentive never to rest on our laurels. We therefore consider the effects along the entire lifecycle.

“Our vision is a Zero Impact Factory. The factory without environmental impact closes material cycles and the raw materials used are returned to a production process at the end of the vehicle's life.”