Soy oil, rice and wheat straw, coconut husk, discarded plastic bottles and denim scrap… items one would not expect to figure on the shopping list of a global automobile manufacturer.

But they do; and the century-old Ford Motors is confident they will ensure the company lasts a century more, says John Viera, Global Director, Sustainability and Vehicle Environmental Matters.

Viable options

Sustainability is about ensuring resources last longer, even better, using resources that can be replenished, and reducing and recycling waste.

To an automobile manufacturer it is inevitable that means reducing dependence on petroleum-based products, a natural resource that is not only getting used up fast but is growing more expensive.

But it is not just about vehicle mileage or alternative fuels though they hog a lion’s share of the research spend, says Viera. As the leader of a team that addresses sustainability in Ford, alternative fuels, renewable energy, are major issues.

“If you look at the projections of oil prices going up it is important to replace oil-based products with waste. People may even pay you to take away waste. The financial impact will be positive,” he says.

“We have in place plans for how much recycled content, how much plant-based materials will go into our vehicles over the next five years. While being environmentally friendly we will also be financially positive,” Viera says.

“Globally we are now using oil from the soy plant – soy oil – instead of petroleum products to make foam for the seats,” says Viera.

The thinking is that as production of vehicles increases, the tendency is to continuously pull out iron and petroleum from earth that is going to run out. But plants are grown all the time. Also, recycling materials keeps them from going into landfills and avoid pollution.

Reusing waste

In the midsize segment, in the Ford Fusion and Mondeo, “We grind down and weave disposable plastic bottles into seat material. Ford Fusions throughout the world use recycled water bottles”, says Viera. “Look at the carpeting in the cars. They are padded to make them softer and keep out noise. The padding is a cotton-type of fibre.”

“What we have done is worked with a denim manufacturer that makes blue jeans. A lot of scrap denim is normally disposed in land fill. We asked the padding supplier to take the scrap and use it to make padding for carpets.”

So this is all about taking waste and reusing them in new products. That is being sustainable. Ford has a strategy to increase plant-based materials and recycled material going into its products region-wise.

Plastic parts are strengthened using fibre glass, a petroleum-based, energy intensive, product. Instead we found we could actually use plant fibres, straw from different plants through out the world, says Viera. In India one can use rice straw, in Canada wheat straw and in Brazil coconut husk. Use local people and local materials to actually then produce those parts for the vehicles, that is sustainability initiative, he says.

Europe is most advanced in this concept of using plant-based material where it has been used in making storage bins in cars. “And we hope to adopt more of this approach to India, China and Brazil where it is relatively new,” says Viera.

In Canada, which grows a lot of wheat, and where Ford has an engineering team as well wheat stalk is used in making storage bins of Ford SUVs, sold in the US,

So to the US-based company plans for sustainability are intertwined with its One Ford initiative with the goal of creating “an exciting viable Ford delivering profitable growth for all.”

“Basically the business plan what we call One Ford in terms of how we want Ford to operate is very much tied into these sustainability plans. They are really one and the same,” says Viera.

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