BORG Automotive Reman, the leading independent remanufacturer of automotive spare parts in Europe, has conducted comparative Life Cycle Assessments of its products in corporation with Linköping University. The result: BORG Automotive’s remanufactured products show a tendency of reduced environmental impact compared with newly produced spare parts.
Sustainability is becoming an increasingly important topic in the automotive aftermarket. The same applies to the remanufacturing of automotive spare parts: It has the reputation of having a less negative impact on the environment than new production. However, only a few manufacturers have had their exact environmental impact of remanufactured spare parts determined, the findings third party validated and made public.
Credit: BORG
Lower environmental impact than new products
BORG Automotive Reman is now one of them. The remanufacturer commissioned Linköping University to complete Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) for all eight product groups: The company remanufactures used original brake calipers, EGR valves, starters, alternators, turbochargers, AC compressors, steering racks and steering pumps and distributes them under the brands Elstock, DRI, TMI and Lucas.
The company has now published the results of the comparative LCAs. The figures clearly speak in favor of BORG Automotive’s remanufacturing: Combining the results from all eight product groups shows they perform significantly better on average in terms of environmental footprint towards Global Warming (-60%), Natural reserves (-70%) and energy demand (-42%).
Remanufactured EGR valves: 99,6 percent raw material savings
According to the LCAs completed by experts at Linköping University in compliance with the related international research standards, a remanufactured EGR valve from BORG Automotive has a 46% lower energy demand, 57% less CO2eq emissions to the atmosphere, and requires 99,6% less new material compared to a newly manufactured EGR valve. The same applies to remanufactured starters: Here, 77% less CO2eq is emitted to the atmosphere while energy demand decreases by 80% and depletion of natural resources even by 90% compared with newly manufactured starters.
Concrete figures: important for distributors and workshops
“We are proud to be one of the first suppliers to be able to provide our customers in the trade and workshop reliable figures on the life cycle assessment of our products,” says Line S. Meldgaard, Sustainability Manager at BORG Automotive. “The figures cannot be transferred to other manufacturers,” she concludes. “At BORG Automotive we have been working with a circular business model for more than 40 years and many individual factors go into the results – for example the reuse rate of the cores or the way we organize our processes, where we source our sub-components, and how efficiently we use energy.”
With these figures BORG Automotive not only proves that their remanufacturing causes less environmental impact than new production. They also provide a good starting point for further improvements.