The 3 Rs of sustainability – applications to the automotive industry

Reduce – Reuse – Recycle. These are the three major strategies to lower emissions and ressource consumption. EDAG as an engineering service provider has developed different approaches following these strategies.

To reduce the carbon footprint the utilization of biobased materials is a possible solution. We want to show that even structural parts can be manufactured with these materials. Our example is a child seat made of flax fibers ans biobased polyamide.
Reuse is a very diffcult discipline since it requires the adaption of the whole vehicle ecosystem. During the last years several projects to achieve novel circular economy solutions for vehicles were developed. We achieved longer lifespans for critical components so we can now use them for more than one vehicle life. Our approach includes remanufacturing and creates a whole new value chain. The parts are based on durable and lightweight CFRP. By the enlarged utilization time, we can lower the carbon footprint in comparison to steel and other materials.
Another approach is modular design, that decouples the life of components from the lifespan of the vehicle. Again, we create a system for circular economy. The key again is the selection of materials providing a lower footprint over the whole lifespan of the part.

A presentation by Stefan Caba, Head of Innovation Field Sustainable Vehicle Development at EDAG.

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