Company focus: Serge Ferrari: from life cycle assessment to circular economy

Company focus: Serge Ferrari: from life cycle assessment to circular economy

Located in the highly competitive textiles and composites industry, the company Serge Ferrari has, over the years, managed to deploy its unique features both internally and in its customer relations. This differentiation has helped it maintain and concentrate its European production activities. It has also brought the company to consider its social and environmental responsibility and develop circular economy activities.

From textile to composite material

Serge Ferrari was founded in the 70s and originally manufactured coated textiles. Very quickly the company sought to diversify and move towards the production of technical textiles followed by composite materials. With 650 employees and a turnover of 150 million, it operates on a B to B basis.

The first step was to develop unique patented materials processes, integrating the design and manufacture of equipment. Production operators became involved in the design of their tools. This highly participatory approach completely changed the mindset in the company. The second step was to innovate by involving customers and designing future end applications with them (B to C). The third step came about in the 90s when Ferrari became concerned about its social and environmental performance, viewed as a real sign of differentiation and innovation. This was a milestone, for the company realized that it had no choice but to become committed if it wanted to invest in this field. Assessment of the life cycle of products was the first action to be carried out.


From life cycle assessment to the development of a unique recycling business


Life cycle assessment (LCA) has shown that the extraction of non-renewable resources from the petrochemical industry is responsible for at least 70% of environmental impacts.

Those related to the process and operation of the business count for only 5%. Since then, the company has become ISO 14001 certified. For the resource, the company has created a dual strategy:

1› Lightening products by developing lightweight applications for inputs, with less material

2 › Recycling to reduce the overall consumption of raw materials.
So Ferrari developed a specific process for the recycling of composite materials. It filed the patent in 1997 with the Solvay group and then developed this process until 2008 when it created its own composite materials recycling business. This was a first in this sector.

LCA is an integral part of the design and conception of Serge Ferrari products.

This method shows the advantage of recycled materials versus virgin materials, dividing impacts by a factor of ten on almost all indicators. To obtain top quality recycled materials, a very demanding sorting operation is carried out upstream to prevent contamination by other materials in the recycling process.

Ferrari has been able to roll out new applications of recycled products with low impact, especially for the manufacture of green roofs, garden hoses, etc.

This recycling activity is particularly conducive to creating employment: 22 jobs are required to recycle 10,000 tonnes of composite materials instead of just one for burying a similar amount.

It represents a major investment for the company (€15 million) and is still not profitable to date. However, the company has obtained several direct and indirect benefits from this:

› In the area of institutional contracts (tenders for the Olympics, for major cultural events, etc.), environmental clauses are crucial and it is Serge Ferrari products that are often prescribed

› For financial partners, Corporate Social Responsibility reports are no longer enough. They are wary of vague claims and failure to anticipate with regard to emerging concerns. They want to be sure of companies' long-term reputation. So they are interested in companies that actually invest in order to understand and anticipate future requirements, using LCA, toxicological studies, etc. and then really develop products with low environmental and health impact.

Romain Ferrari: CEO of Ferrari:

What lessons can you draw from this recycling activity?

"When we decided to implement this activity, we knew that it had to be done well, and that it would need to be constantly measured and corrected. We had to find skills and networks. Solvay agreed to work with us, and they shared our values. Today, our biggest challenge is not a technical but an economic one. This recycling activity must reach equilibrium in the next three years at the latest. Today, it is not right that a finished product containing recycled materials should be more expensive than a non-recycled product. It's true that recycling generates operating losses but if we add the direct and intangible benefits, there's no way that a group like Ferrari would turn back the clock".


For more information: http://www.sergeferrari.com/

From an industrial commitment to a very personal macroeconomic commitment: Fondation 2019

Created by Romain Ferrari, under the aegis of Fondation de France, Fondation 2019 aims to introduce regulatory instruments to correct the failings of a market that does not include externalities.

It came about as the result of several observations: › High environmental value (HEV) products are often not profitable because they are more expensive to produce
› Externalities are not counted in products with a high environmental impact. These "hidden" costs always end up increasing public expenditure because of various forms of pollution, resource depletion, etc.
› Consumers, including alternative consumers, are less and less inclined to pay more for an HEV product. So the foundation offers circular VAT. The idea is to apply reduced VAT rate for finished products containing recycled materials, so that consumer choice criteria are impacted by a "price signal" encouraging virtuous products. To date, the authorities have still to be convinced. Although in the short term lowering VAT is a tax expenditure, the development of these new production-consumption patterns would quickly reduce public costs related to pollution and resource depletion. 
Currently, the foundation is involved in discussions with representatives of the authorities with a view to testing circular VAT on two or three sectors.

Fondation 2019 supports this research and these experiments in the form of sponsoring. It is mainly funded by Romain Ferrari personally.


For more information: http://www.fondation-2019.fr/

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Source: ECLAIRA - Newsletter Number 4 / September 2016
published by CIRIDD with support from the Auvergne - Rhône-Alpes region

Photo credits: Serge Ferrari DR

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Nicolas Frango

Animateur club CLEF & chargé de missions CIRIDD