Novelis' 'REcycled ALuminium CAR' project wins top industry honor

By Carolina Curiel

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): Aluminum major Novelis has won the prestigious automotive and transportation category at the 2016 aluminium trade fair at Düsseldorf in Germany. The company’s closed loop programme, REALCAR (Recycled ALuminium CAR), launched in 2008, in partnership with automotive major Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) won the award.

As part of the project, part funded by Innovate UK, eleven press shops under JLR’s UK unit had introduced a new system for segregating waste aluminium scrap. The company had invested nearly £7 million in installation of segregation systems across various UK facilities. The scrap thus collected was sent back to Novelis, where it was re-melted into recycled aluminium sheet for use in vehicles. According to JLR, it has successfully reclaimed over 50,000 tonnes of aluminium scrap during 2015. The reclaimed scrap is equivalent to nearly 200,000 Jaguar XE body shells. The savings on use of primary aluminium material has helped the company to prevent 500,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere. Also, REALCAR has helped Novelis to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 13%.

Also, Novelis developed the new Novelis AdvanzTM s5754 RC aluminium alloy containing up to 75% recycled content. The new alloy, which was first introduced in the Jaguar XE series, is now featured in all new and legacy Jaguar Land Rover models.

Emilio Braghi, president of Novelis Europe stated that the company is honored to be recognized for its leadership in aluminium alloy innovation and recycling efforts. The award is recognition for the skills and talents of its employees, who constantly work to develop new alloys, innovative applications and ground-breaking models that enhance the recyclability features of rolled aluminium. The close partnership with world’s leading automaker has helped to maximize the attributes of aluminium, Braghi added.

Nick Rogers, Group Engineering Director, JLR noted that innovative projects such as REALCAR demonstrates the company’s commitment to meet the highest standards of sustainability. The closed loop program will help the company to achieve its goal of raising the recycled aluminium content in its vehicle structures to 75% by 2020, he stated. Further, the project enabled the two entities to view their activities as a value chain, rather than as a traditional transactional supply chain, Rogers added.

The project is the result of JLR’s efforts to mitigate the energy and cost-intensive nature of using primary aluminum. The company’s partnership with its primary material supplier Novelis and the UK’s innovation agency resulted in a closed-loop value chain that minimized the use of primary material and maximized the use of recycled aluminum during vehicle manufacturing. Studies indicate that recycled aluminium requires up to 95% less energy during production than primary material, thereby contributing to significant reduction in the overall lifecycle impact of JLR vehicles. REALCAR has contributed to 13.8% reduction of global warming potential over a typical vehicle’s overall lifecycle.