Every year in Europe more than 11 million vehicles, made up of around 85 percent recyclable materials, reach the end of their life. However, this resource is under-exploited. New vehicles are made up of only 20-30 percent of recycled material, from all industries. In a bid to increase the proportion of recycled materials from the automotive industry in the production of new vehicles, the Renault Group announced creation of a new entity entirely dedicated to the circular economy- ‘The Future Is NEUTRAL’.
The group plans to bring together its existing industrial and technological expertise and assets under this new brand. This will become one of the first companies to operate across the entire automotive circular economy value chain, and is aimed at all players in the automotive world, beyond Renault Group.
With the objective of the business portfolio reaching a turnover of more than 2 billion euro and an operating margin of more than 10 percent by 2030, The Future Is NEUTRAL is opening up a minority of its capital to outside investors. The target is create to co-financing investments of around 500 million euro until 2030.
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Elaborating more on the new brand, Jean-Philippe Bahuaud, CEO of The Future Is NEUTRAL, explains the objective of The Future Is NEUTRAL is to maintain the value of parts and materials for as long as possible and to enable the industry to achieve a much higher rate of recycled automotive materials in the production of new vehicles, “The Future Is NEUTRAL brings together the expertise to convert this potential into new growth levers. This new entity aims to push the automotive industry towards resource neutrality, extracting from each vehicle the largest possible amount of material needed to manufacture a new model.”
In concrete terms, The Future Is NEUTRAL relies on its subsidiary Gaia, whose battery repair, parts collection and reuse, and recycling of materials from end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) are based in Flins.
Also located at the heart of the Flins Refactory, the renovation of mechanical and mechatronic parts, as well as the future vehicle dismantling line, aim to supply these circular flows. With its reference partner Suez, the entity also owns two companies: Indra, the leader in ELV treatment in France and Boone Comenor, an expert in the recycling of metal scraps from industry.
Luca de Meo, CEO of Renault Group, said: “Our subsidiaries Gaia, Indra and Boone Comenor, as well as the Refactory in Flins, have already demonstrated our ability to generate activities that create economic, social and environmental value throughout the vehicle life cycle. Based on this experience and convinced of the potential of these activities, we are accelerating and creating The Future Is NEUTRAL, which brings together all our industrial and technological assets, as well as our network of strategic partners.”
Alongside industrial partners, The Future Is NEUTRAL aims at becoming a future European leader in closed-loop battery recycling, in line with regulations, and attractive to other car manufacturers by ensuring the required level of recycled content in their batteries at the best cost.
The Future Is NEUTRAL also offers the automotive industry a consultancy service, as well as training dedicated to the circular economy, with the support of the Circular Mobility Industry (ICM) campus based in Flins, as part of the group’s ReKnow University.
