Going circular: Spain’s automotive suppliers have seized the initiative

Among the lessons learned during the pandemic of the past year, there is one in particular that stands out. Moving forward, it is imperative that steps are taken towards the implementation of green measures to mitigate the effects of climate change in the world. It is a lesson the Spanish automotive component sector has taken to heart.
Yet even before the outbreak of the Coronavirus, this sector was actively seeking ways to make mobility cleaner, combat climate change, decrease its impact on the environment and support a low-carbon economy. These efforts led to the insight that what was needed was a new economic system; one that optimised raw material, energy and other resource use; a model built around waste reduction, recycling and re-use that would lead to enhanced profitability, lower prices and more sustainable products. A model, in short, today known as the circular economy - and seen for many years now by the Spanish automotive components industry as the road to a sustainable and future economy.

The Spanish automotive industry dates back to the early twentieth century with leading brands of the era such as Hispano Suiza. In the 1950s, the emergence of SEAT marked the beginning of a solid industry of equipment and component manufacturers as suppliers. The branch is represented worldwide by a digital platform called Autoparts from Spain, whose database contains information on each member company, including descriptions, images and videos of their products.
One of these member companies is Lizarte, who has been involved with the circular economy model from the very beginning in 1973.

“We believe in this model of business based on re-manufacturing, it is, using a end-of-life-cycle product (in our case steering zippers, assisting pumps, air-conditioning compressors and diesel systems) and using diverse productive processes we bring the parts back to a second life. We found out from the very beginning that this model had a future, so we have exclusively devoted ourselves to it,” said Richard Izquierdo, who is responsible for Marketing at Lizarte.

Another major automotive supplier, Grupo Antolin, is looking at, among other things, the development of alternative material solutions .“At Grupo Antolin, we support technological innovation through, for instance, studying materials from renewable sources and natural sources and analysing more efficient ways to reduce and recycle manufacturing-created waste,” said Javier Blanco sustainability director at Grupo Antolin.

The sector’s vision of the circular economy covers the full life-cycle of the products they manufacture, from conceptualisation to production. These companies moreover collectively invest substantially in I+D - in 2019 over 4% of their revenue, three times the industry average, which has allowed them to contiually optimise and advance their processes.

“In terms of promoting the circular economy in transformation processes, Grupo Antolin has developed the Novaform technology, which allows a meaningful increase in the proportion of post-industrial recycled material able to be reused in car interior manufacturing. We have also developed the Coretech line of materials, produced by recycling waste materials from our own industrial processes - in this case, from making car overheads” added Javier Blanco.

The automotive sector as a whole is supportive of the production model adopted by the suppliers sector. Next to a proven environmental impact, as a ‘100% circular business model, it impacts our full activity,’ according to Izquierdo. He said that at Lazarte, in the period of a single year, some 58,000 parts are given a second life and 330 tons of product are diverted from becoming waste.

At Grupo Antolin, 336 tones of recycled plastic material were used in the period 2016-2020, representing  53% of the entire quantity of material used to produce more than 2 million parts. “From the start of Coretech project in 2007, more than 1 million square meters of product has been manufactured using 5,900 tons of roof waste,” Blanco said.

The Spanish Circular Economy Strategy (España Circular 2030)  is helping to steer the efforts directed at achieving a sustainable, carbon-free economy that is, at the same time, efficient, resourceful and competitive. Yet, said Lizarte, expert in re-manufacturing processes, other countries are doing more in this direction, including the Netherlands and France, both of which have introduced legal frameworks that specifically empower and help bring awareness.

According to Grupo Antolin, however, various initiatives are ongoing in Spain that demonstrate the country’s strategy to transition towards a circular economy model.

The best evidence of this is the fact that a considerable proportion of the Next Generation recovery funds will be devoted to speeding up this transition, through support for key projects in the field, the company concluded.