Environment
Sharing the planet responsibly with customers, employees, shareholders, communities and suppliers is the impetus behind key sustainability objectives at Goodyear & Dunlop Tyres. Our sustainable activities mirror this commitment.
Two of Goodyear & Dunlop Tyres shared values — encouraging wellness and safety both on the job and at home and caring for our environment and communities are key drivers of our environmental, health, safety and sustainability (EHS&S) efforts.
Our formal EHS&S organisation is responsible for compliance, sustainability and product stewardship and leads a strategy to promote safety in everything we do and reduce our environmental impact across our product lifecycle and benefit our associates, customers and communities.
Our strategy to reduce our environmental impact begins by optimising materials. We continuously evaluate the raw materials we use, including material characteristics, energy composition, social and regulatory activities and alternatives. All evaluations and future use are established by the Product Stewardship Steering Group, a group of senior managers. Goodyear & Dunlop Tyres’ new supplier development activities include an assessment of material sustainability performance and material innovation. We have fundamental research and development activities focused on renewable materials and material reduction, reusability and recyclability.
The product component refers to the optimisation of a tyre’s footprint or eco-friendly attributes, which requires three simultaneous considerations during product design. First, we measure a tyre’s wet grip to determine its ability to safely provide transportation under adverse conditions. Second, we design and build products that minimise material usage and reduce rolling resistance for reducing fuel use and minimizing fuel costs. Finally, optimising treadwear is also an important consideration and helps decrease material usage by reducing the frequency of tyre changes.
A significant component of our strategy is to inform our consumers about our products, including safe use and best sustainability practices, as well as our efforts to provide maximum value to them. Of special focus are novice drivers, such as first-generation drivers in emerging markets. Besides the information shared by professional tyre technicians during a tyre purchase, we also want consumers to know about our efforts to minimise our impact on the environment as we produce their tyres. We do this through store signage, marketing programs and publications such as this website.
One of our most important tasks is to communicate to our associates so they understand our sustainability strategy and expected behaviours. To become fully engaged in our sustainability efforts, each associate is asked to strive to conserve energy, minimise the use of resources (reduce, reuse, recycle), work safely, strive for personal wellness and follow all work rules and regulations.
Goodyear & Dunlop Tyres has a long history of following sustainability practices and is working hard to be a responsible neighbour in every community in which we operate. As we believe sustainability is a journey, we are constantly evolving as we improve our overall performance and strive to lead the industry to benefit our associates, our customers, our shareholders, our suppliers, our communities and the environment.
TYRE RECYCLING
Goodyear & Dunlop Tyres is committed to the ethical and environmentally sound treatment of End of Life (EOL) tyres and has developed a safe, environmentally responsible procedure for waste tyre disposal. EOL tyres are collected and transported for processing by Australia’s most reputable recyclers with the recycled rubber then used towards a large range of innovative applications, including:
- Road construction and surfacing
- New tyres and brake pads
- Soft-fall surfaces for children’s playgrounds
- Civil engineering application, such as retaining walls, embankments and drainage aggregates; and
- Substitute fuel for manufacturing.
We use only tyre recyclers that operate in accordance with environmental regulations and we work actively with our industry bodies — the Australian Tyre Industry Council, the Tyre Stewardship Association and the Federal Government — to ensure additional sustainable solutions are adopted and advanced.