Pirelli and FIA together for increasingly sustainable motorsports

How long does it take a bottle of water thrown into the sea to decompose, or rather, to break down into smaller pieces of micro/nano plastic? The answer is: 450 years, without considering the fact that these small pieces of plastic absorb chemical agents, pesticides and even the smells of the sea which means that sometimes they get mistaken for food by many marine animals, thus entering the food chain and making their way all the way back to our table.

How much does a scheduled aircraft pollute on average? The answer is: The equivalent of about 600 Euro 0 cars, the most polluting means of transport of all.

Levels of pollution across the globe are rising every day and everyone has noticed this, including the world of motorsports.

Attention to environmental sustainability has always been central to Pirelli's strategy, as well as being fully integrated into the company's motorsports business model. Pirelli has always focused on sustainability in motorsports, working closely with FIA and fully sharing the same vision of sustainable mobility and sports.

Pirelli's sustainable approach to motorsports mainly reflects the company’s corporate sustainability model, integrating it into the Formula 1 tyre supply flows and in commercial relations, along all the different phases of the life cycle of the company's F1 programme: from procurement, to manufacturing, logistics, product use through to end-of-life tyre management.

That’s probably why Pirelli is the first and only tyre manufacturer in the world to have obtained three stars from the Environmental Accreditation Programme promoted by FIA, prestigious acknowledgement for the commitment shown in the field of sustainability in motorsports.
This goal has been achieved thanks to the serious and constant commitment to environmental management, which characterises the company along its entire value chain, from suppliers to production processes, from product innovation to corporate culture. The environmental certifications obtained, the performance of reducing emissions and the consumption of natural resources, the challenging targets that Pirelli has certainly given itself have played a considerable part in this achievement.

The measures that Pirelli has taken to achieve this result in Formula 1™ include the increase in the use of renewable materials, the elimination of disposable plastic from activities on the track and a supply chain that is completely managed according to criteria of environmental and social sustainability. As far as logistics are concerned, Pirelli uses the most recent fleet of EURO 6D trucks and for shipments outside Europe, the brand opts for sea freight as much as possible, which is less polluting than air freight.

What’s more, Pirelli's motorsports activity has successfully passed a series of rigorous audits that take into account various elements to reduce the environmental impact, starting with carbon dioxide emissions.

Pirelli selects materials used to produce tyres and suppliers on the basis of strict sustainability criteria.

The materials first undergo a preliminary assessment in terms of occupational health and the environment before they can be used.

As far as our suppliers are concerned, Pirelli's Policy is very strict and is based on the necessary shared vision and responsible management of the business as the basis for commercial relations. Material suppliers must adhere to strict rules of quality, social and environmental sustainability. As early as the material supplier qualification and type-approval phase, Pirelli starts a third-party sustainability audit at the supplier's site, in order to track any non-conformities and start up recovery plans. This is a mandatory condition for proceeding with type approval.

Pirelli also has dedicated policies, for example in the case of natural rubber: the company is engaged both with its suppliers and with its customers and also on international platforms, so that the natural rubber business can grow without deforestation and in a prosperous way for communities and ecosystems.

Even the most advanced simulation processes implemented by Pirelli have played an important role because they have made it possible to reduce the percentage of physical tyres and therefore the number of prototypes to be tested. And experimentation is closely linked to the work that is carried out in terms of simulation because on the one hand the parameters of the new test methodologies can be determined more quickly and on the other the simulation makes it possible to place only targeted variants on the track, as an initial screening is carried out on the test bench.

Examples of Pirelli's sustainability goals, both in business and in manufacturing, include the reduction of total CO₂ emissions by 25% by 2025 (compared to 2015 levels) and the purchasing of a 100% share of electricity from renewable sources; this target has already been reached for all of Pirelli's European plants including the motorsports factories in Slatina, Romania, and Izmit, Turkey.

In the future, Pirelli's environmental strategy will allow the group, including the Motorsports department, to achieve Carbon Neutrality by 2030 with aggressive plans to replace fossil fuel energy with 100% renewable energy.

Pirelli is also engaged in research projects for the recovery of high-quality material from end-of-life motorsports tyres and evaluates innovative ideas for obtaining second raw materials from disposal processes. To increase the share of tyres involved in this virtuous process, the company has launched a process to raise awareness in the world of motorsports and its teams and to recover the tyres used in all motorsports competitions on an international scale.