The multinational, Novelis, a leading provider of sustainable aluminum solutions and world leader in aluminum rolling and recycling, announced a new partnership with Smart Press Shop (SPS), a joint venture between Porsche AG and Schuler Group based in Halle (Saale), Germany, to work together on closed-loop recycling operations.
Novelis will thus supply aluminum products from its plant in Nachterstedt, Germany, for the Smart Press Shop. In addition, it returns scrap resulting from the manufacturing process to Nachterstedt for SPS. The multinational recycles the scrap and converts it into a new laminated sheet that is delivered back to SPS and returns to the production cycle where it would be converted into parts for a car body without replacing it. With minimal energy costs, all of the benefits derived from the project are likely to help reduce carbon emissions by up to 100,000 tons per year.
SPS is currently focused on the production of truly sustainable and efficient automotive components, backed by superior quality. That is why he chose Novelis as the company to help him develop a comprehensive global recycling system for major automakers such as BMW, Volvo, Nissan, Ford and Jaguar Land Rover. In the automotive area, recycling programs are an important contribution to the achievement of its core environmental objectives.
“SPS and Novelis are ideal partners in moving the automotive industry closer to achieving the standards of a circular economy through the sustainable sourcing and production of materials. At Novelis, we have a remarkable story to tell about our closed-loop recycling innovations. From our goal of achieving zero waste to landfill to becoming carbon neutral, we take our responsibility as a global leader in sustainability very seriously and look forward to all that we can achieve with SPS.”said Michael Hahne, Vice President Automotive, Novelis Europe.
The proximity of the Halle plant to Novelis’ Nachterstedt Recycling Center, the world’s largest aluminum recycling facility, will further enable environmental sustainability due to reduced transportation times. In addition, SPS is responsible for optimizing material recovery rates through the use of innovative, digitized processes and state-of-the-art laser cutting technology in the manufacture of exterior vehicle body parts.
Hendrik Rothe, CEO of SPS has a clear vision of what they expect manufacturers to deliver. “In addition to superior quality, sustainability is playing an increasingly important role. With our partner Novelis, we can take smart car designs and manufacturing to new heights by making more efficient and sustainable automotive components and increasing the resilience of our supply chain.” he remarked.
Specifically, Novelis and SPS have already secured initial projects for premium automakers focused on lightweighting and the two companies are working together to extend the supply of sustainable aluminum body parts to additional automakers. For their part, the partners are constantly looking for new opportunities and working to scale up the closed-loop recycling program to achieve even greater CO2 savings.
