Environment | Value natural resources
Action1: Reduce raw material consumption

Given the increase in demand accompanying population growth and people’s desires for more convenient lifestyles, there are concerns that, if nothing changes, the growth in demand for raw materials will exceed the earth’s capacity. To avoid this will require constructing systems to decouple the environmental impacts caused by growing demand. To help assist this decoupling, the Bridgestone Group is taking steps to improve our resource productivity.

In the case of tires, for example, we foresee both an ongoing requirement for lower fuel consumption and continuous environmental performance improvements without sacrificing comfort and safety functionality. At the same time, the Group promotes new business models and the development of technology for reducing the volume of raw materials used to make each product.

The Bridgestone Group is developing the technology to reduce the volume of raw material, keeping original durability and safety.

We have successfully developed the world’s first^*1 polymer to bond rubber and resins at the molecular level in 2018 and received the Environmental Achievement of the Year recognition in March 2019 at the Tire Technology International Awards. This new polymer boasts unprecedented durability with crack resistance that is over five times higher,^*2 abrasion resistance that is more than 2.5 times higher,^*3 and tensile strength that is more than 1.5 times higher^*4 than natural rubber, which itself has higher destruction resistance than common synthetic rubber.

The newly developed polymer, called High Strength Rubber (HSR), is a hybrid material to bond synthetic rubber components such as butadiene and isoprene, with resin components such as ethylene,^*5 at the molecular level by using Bridgestone’s proprietary novel gadolinium (Gd) catalyst^*6 (via copolymerization^*7). HSR boasts levels of durability and abrasion resistance that eclipse those of natural rubber. For this reason, HSR is a promising next-generation tire material with the potential to create tires that achieve the required levels of performance while using less materials. We continue to explore commercial opportunities for this newly developed polymer for tires and other products.

A thinner tire reduces the weight of a tire, which improves fuel economy and also saves resources by using fewer raw materials. However, making a tire thinner requires first ensuring sufficient durability, and developing new tough materials that exceed existing technology. Bridgestone has participated in the Cabinet Office’s ImPACT^*1initiative, and conducted research aimed at creating an ultrathin, durable, and flexible tough polymer.

We announced the results in 2016. Through this research, we aim to develop a strong material that exceeds previous limits and ultimately create thinner tires that reduce raw material demand.