Materials suppliers face new challenges related to sustainability

As pressure increases for automakers and other OEMs to reduce their carbon footprint, materials suppliers are looking for recycled feedstock sources and weighing the benefits of recycled and bio-based materials.

ABS resins supplier Elix Polymers SL isn't finding it easy to find a good source of materials, both good quality and enough volumes, Fabian Herter, marketing manager, told Plastics News at Fakuma 2023 in Friedrichshafen, Germany.

With more regulations for automotive OEMs to reduce the CO2 footprint of their products, investments in chemical recycling in the U.S. and Europe are increasing, Herter said. But it's a challenge for the industry to get regulators and the public to accept it as a technology.

"With new technologies, capacity and costs can go down with more volumes available," he said.

Customers' uptake of mechanically recycled materials has also been "slower than expected," Herter said.

"For automotive, for example, [it's] nearly impossible that they accept the higher prices. But for other applications, it's easier to go ahead. … We have that demand," he said.

"But we have to be ready and approve suppliers to assure volumes … by the mechanical recyclers … we're close with our suppliers," he added.

Elix also has "detailed discussions" with its customers to educate them on the decreased carbon emissions from mechanically recycled materials.

ABS generally hasn't been an easy market this year, Herter said.

"The forecast is not so positive. Everybody is really in a negative mood. Demand is not ramping up. In the U.S., it was already low demand. And then the high imports from Asia coming, and then the ongoing [UAW] strike," he said.

Earlier this year, Ford, GM, Stellantis, BMW, Renault Nissan Mitsubishi, Daimler and Tesla approved several Elix products.

The company developed a range of specialty grades of ABS and polycarbonate/ABS to be used in interior parts like door handles, armrests, seating parts, sunroofs, cup holders and air vents. The materials reduce squeaking and rattling sounds generated by plastic parts making contact with other plastic parts, leather, PVC-foil or other products.

For the last year, Elix has been using electricity solely from sources other than fossil fuels at its facility in Tarragona, Spain.

It also began including sustainability criteria in its supply chain analysis by increasing the visibility, traceability and mitigation of the environmental, social and governance risks of its suppliers as part of the company's management system.

Material suppliers and their customers need accurate and transparent data from every part of the supply chain to address products' carbon contributions, Henrik Palokangas, application development and sustainability specialist at Polykemi AB, told PN.

But suppliers have only just begun collecting data for life cycle assessments, Palokangas said: "When we started this four years ago, there wasn't really any information available."

Because of that, "LCAs aren't yet an exact science," he said. There are "so many ways to interpret" the data. LCAs are also based on assumptions, Palokangas said: "We need to have the same assumptions, otherwise we cannot compare [data]."

As scientists, he said, sustainability experts should look for answers to questions that haven't been asked yet. If an LCA doesn't comprehensively address all emissions from oil extraction to production of goods, including unintentional methane emissions, "then probably there are some other discrepancies along the way," he said.

Polykemi doesn't "try to make [its] figures better than they are," he added.

The "decision-makers" for companies looking to improve the sustainability of their products "are not scientists," Palokangas said. "They need to know the facts.

"We do a workshop together with OEMs to go through the data in more detail, just to bring everybody to the same level," he said. "Then we start to focus on what are the action requirements on the components and what material should we choose."

Sweden-based Polykemi's LCAs have shown bio-based materials can have higher carbon footprints than recycled materials.

Assuming bio-based materials are better for all applications, "we risk creating a new problem with the solution," Palokangas said.

Bio-based materials may not harmonize with efforts to reduce carbon emissions, but they do address the impact of environmental plastic pollution, he said.

"There are places for everything," Palokangas said. "Single-use plastics [may] make sense for biocircular materials.

"We're starting to get the information we need to [see] different values for the same polymer, depending on where it comes from," Palokangas said. "We're starting to select suppliers with a lower [emissions] footprint. That benefits us in the long run."

Suppliers with lower emissions are "not cheaper," he added, "which means our compounds will be more expensive. But there is a value in this.

"Now we're in kind of a recession, so the price will be really important. But as a family business, we don't work quarterly; we work in three- to five-year plans. So we take a little lower margin," he added. "We know in the long run that we will benefit from it."