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From the collaborative minds of Novelis’ top automotive experts Jamie Zinser, Vice President, Global Automotive, Xavier Varone, Global Technical Director, and Don Whitacre, Director, Automotive Technical Development, a recently published Thought Leadership shows why aluminum is now the fastest-growing automotive material and the key to success for automakers seeking to transition to lighter, greener and simpler to manufacture vehicles. 

Pound for pound, kilo for kilo, no other material can match aluminum when it comes to delivering the strength, durability and low-carbon footprint demanded by today’s increasingly innovative vehicle designs while also significantly reducing weight. 

Read the full Thought Leadership piece here. 

In a recent article in MetalForming magazine, Mario Greco, Director of Strategy for Global Automotive at Novelis, discusses the transformative landscape of the automotive industry and the pivotal role aluminum plays in its electrification journey.  

For an in-depth look at our latest aluminum solutions supporting the electrification of the automotive industry, read the full article on MetalForming magazine’s website: MetalForming Magazine – Recent Developments in Aluminum Grades 

Novelis and thyssenkrupp Materials Services aim to set new standards for end-of-vehicle-life recycling by developing a digital hub called Automotive Circularity Platform (ACP). The goal for ACP is to be an open platform that will enable access to larger quantities of high-quality recycling materials. A first step will include the creation of a prototype for comprehensive testing and evaluation purposes.

The companies have formed a partnership to digitalize the market for secondary materials recovered from automobiles at the end of the consumer-use cycle and increase its transparency by creating an ecosystem for the automotive end-of-life value chain.

While closed-loop aluminium recycling of production scrap has become a sustainability best practice in the automotive industry in recent years, the loop at the end of a vehicle’s life has yet to be closed. 

In a market that is thriving with diverse opportunities and on the brink of exciting growth, the partnership between Novelis and thyssenkrupp Materials Services is a major step toward achieving a circular economy and reducing carbon emissions. 

ACP will be a digital marketplace that connects stakeholders throughout the automotive end-of-life value chain and empowers automotive suppliers to capture and reuse aluminium and other materials, such as steel, plastics, glass, rubber, and more.

Presently, internal combustion engines can account for up to 80 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions during automobile lifecycles. However, studies suggest that due to the rise in electric vehicles by 2040 emissions from material production may represent 60 percent of total automobile lifecycle emissions. Thus, the reduction of pollutants from tailpipes will become secondary to increasing supply chain and manufacturing efficiencies, as top targets for decarbonization. A circular ecosystem with unprecedented collaboration between all stakeholders will play an essential role in the automotive industry reaching its climate targets.

“ACP is a major step forward in creating an open, accessible trading platform for materials at the end of the consumer-use cycle for companies seeking to fulfill broader and deeper commitments to sustainability and circularity. Not only will ACP increase circularity through optimized material flows and thus enable access to larger quantities of high-quality recycling materials, while minimizing waste to landfill, it will also create a transparent and trusted connection for all stakeholders to create and deploy their own value-generating recycling processes.”

“Novelis and thyssenkrupp Materials Services have formed a relationship that leverages the best of our companies’ respective expertise, the strengths of which are complementary in every respect. thyssenkrupp Materials Services delivers unmatched materials knowledge and experience in digital supply chains and market access to a broad, complex sector. Novelis brings in unique expertise in fields such as aluminium recycling, reuse processes and development of aluminium alloys with high-recycled content. With the idea of developing an automotive circularity platform for aluminium, we are consistently pursuing the path of our sustainability strategy BEYOND at thyssenkrupp Materials Services.”

For aluminium in particular, recycling is the epitome of sustainable practices representing an approximate 95% reduction in CO2 emissions compared to the more energy intensive requirements of primary production. Furthermore, aluminium is infinitely recyclable with no loss of properties including strength, lightness, durability, and formability. The many advantages aluminium offers contribute to its increasing use across industries seeking to achieve greater sustainability.

The benefits of shifting to a circular model include:

  • Reducing waste 
  • Decreasing need for primary materials and associated supply chain disruptions
  • Lessening the need for primary extraction processes and associated higher emissions
  • Improving regulatory compliance and reduces associated costs
  • Creating opportunities to provide end-of-life services such as dismantling, recycling, and recovery of materials and marketing of remanufactured/refurbished components
  • Building consumer trust and loyalty, especially among younger consumers who value sustainability and social responsibility

By Jamie Zinser, Vice President, Global Automotive, Novelis Inc.

ATLANTA, June 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — As the global automotive industry strives to reach ambitious sustainability targets, most notably regarding carbon emissions, it continues to gravitate toward the world’s infinitely recyclable material—aluminum. In fact, aluminum can be recycled and reused endlessly without losing its material properties. This phenomenon is the foundation of a circular economy for the automotive industry fueled by closed-loop and end-of-life recycling.

Read the full report here.

ATLANTA, May 22, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Novelis Inc., a leading sustainable aluminum solutions provider and the world leader in aluminum rolling and recycling, today announced the start up of its new roll forming development line. The new development line will help Novelis meet industry demand for a process that can produce large volumes of high-strength aluminum auto parts.

Read the full report here.

From scrap to valuable resource: In the Car2Car research project under the leadership of the BMW Group, new technologies are developed for the optimized recycling of end-of-life vehicles. As the world’s largest, most efficient, and technologically advanced aluminium recycler, Novelis is contributing to the project by bringing its expertise in the recycling of aluminium. 

Car2Car, a consortium of partners from industry and science, is conducting fundamental work on the circular economy in the automotive sector. Funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection, innovative dismantling and intelligent sorting processes are being tested to increase the circularity for aluminium, steel, glass, copper, and plastics in the automotive sector. 

BMW has set itself a target to increase the share of secondary materials in vehicle production to 50%, making increased use of post-consumer materials. Novelis supports BMW in these efforts by supplying the automaker with aluminium sheet containing between 65%-75% recycled content today. The ambition of both, Novelis and BMW is to produce an outer skin panel from 100% recycled aluminium within this project.

“The Car2Car project is another important step toward economically and ecologically sensible circularity in the automotive industry,” says Michael Hahne, Vice President, Automotive, Novelis Europe. “The intelligent, efficient reuse of post-consumer material preserves resources, significantly lowers environmental impact, and, at the same time, reduces dependency on raw material imports.”  

Closed-loop aluminium is a perfect example of how the consistent use of recycled materials helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and energy needs: recycling aluminium uses only 5% of the energy required to produce primary aluminium, lowering carbon emissions by as much as 95%.

Artificial intelligence (AI) as an enabler for an efficient circular economy 

The Car2Car project is working toward an ideal break-even point between dismantling and post-shredding technology in terms of quality, economics and ecology. Currently, recycling processes still entail high manual workload and losses in material purity. Car2Car uses AI-based sensor technology with recyclable material recognition that identifies different steel and aluminium alloys. This way, a significantly higher-grade purity of the recovered raw materials can be achieved, and the value of the material can be preserved.

The aim of Car2Car is to provide well-founded recommendations for innovative framework conditions that enable shifting from conventional, linear process chains to higher value creation through a circular economy model. 

Novelis has worked with industry partners and automotive engineers to enhance the design of our EV battery enclosure solution. Novelis Director of Strategy, Global Automotive Mario Greco joined SAE International to discuss how we are tailoring our innovations for automaker’s needs.

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Novelis recently participated in the MaterialLoop project of Audi, a pilot project aimed at exploring end-of-life recycling of vehicles. The joint project, which involved 15 partners from the automotive value chain, sought to build knowledge on how to implement a circular economy for vehicles.

For Novelis, driving a more circular economy includes closing the production loop (pre-consumer) and the end-of-life loop (post-consumer). Novelis has developed closed-loop recycling systems with some of the world’s largest car makers,capturing and recycling the aluminium production scrap from the automotive stamping process. The next frontier in automotive circularity is to explore, test and learn end-of life opportunities with customers.

Traditionally, at the end of their useful life, vehicles have been scrapped and the metal has been sent to landfill or downcycled to lesser grade applications, leading to the loss of valuable materials and creating environmental challenges. Changing this by looking into the feasibility and optimization of reusing post-consumer materials for new cars has gained importance on the sustainability agenda of auto manufacturers.

Audi’s pilot project involved the disassembly and separation of 100 vehicles to recover valuable materials such as aluminium, steel, glass, and plastics. As the world’s largest, most efficient, and technologically advanced aluminium recycler, Novelis contributed its expertise in the recycling of aluminium as well as its alloys, which are widely used in the automotive industry. By reusing secondary materials, the pilot project aimed to create a circular system that could not only reduce waste but also eliminate downcycling, and at the same time improve the carbon footprint of automotive production.

End-of-life recycling of aluminium offers great advantages for the automotive industry, as closing the loop preserves the value of the alloy, minimizes environmental impact, and creates a secure supply chain. Recycling aluminum requires 95 percent less energy to produce than primary aluminium, with commensurate savings in CO2 emissions. Already today, Novelis’ delivers automotive alloys which contain up to 80 percent recycled content.

At Novelis, we believe that a circular product system is key for decarbonization, and we work with our partners toward the goal of keeping all aluminium in the loop, recycling it into the same products again and again.

“We continuously advance our recycling processes and alloys to push the limits on how much recycled content we can use in our products,” explains Michael Hahne, Vice President & General Manager Automotive, Novelis Europe.

“Building a circular economy for aluminium is a focus for Novelis and returning end-of-life scrap to its source is key to become more efficient and, thus, collaborations and new ways of partnering will need to be established. Therefore it was important for us to participate in this project.”

To test the reuse of materials in new vehicles, Audi defined and piloted the further recycling process together with project partners from the recycling industry, the Audi supply chain, and academia. Beyond the technical feasibility of returning materials to the supply chain, improving future generations of vehicles’ ability to be recycled was also a focus of the project.
Through participation in the MaterialLoop project, Novelis gained valuable insights into current sorting processes and the improvements needed to increase the recovery rate of aluminium at the end-of-life stage.


Sorting efficiency and technology play a key role in ensuring the economic viability of recycling. Taking the separability of the materials into account as early as the design stage of vehicles will be a game changer. Novelis has been working on design for recycling concepts with many of its automotive customers.


The pilot project is just the beginning of a journey toward a circular economy for vehicles. As we move toward a more sustainable future, initiatives like this are critical to reducing waste, conserving resources, and protecting the environment.

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Novelis is taking automotive material circularity to the next level. In an interview with Automotive Industries, Novelis Senior Vice President, Corporate Development Derek Prichett and Vice President, Global Automotive Jamie Zinser discussed how automakers can use collection and sorting technologies to reduce energy consumption and increase their recycled content in vehicles, thereby reducing their overall CO2 manufacturing footprint.

Read the full article here.

Circularity in Transportation

Representatives of three automotive suppliers, Novelis, Pirelli and Cox Automotive, are joined by the Executive Director of The Ray, a proving ground for the transportation infrastructure of the future, for a conversation about the circular economy.

Key topics and takeaways:

  • Learn how aluminum, tires and batteries are being recycled
  • Find out what the challenges of the automotive suppliers are, as the auto industry is shifting toward electrification
  • Learn why using less resources, that last longer, and are more recyclable is an imperative in these times of supply chain volatility, as well as for the overall sustainability of the industry

If you can’t tune in live, please register and we will email you a link to access the webcast recording and resources, available to you on-demand after the live webcast.

Register Here

Connect with the Experts

Maureen Kline

Vice President Public Affairs & Sustainability, Pirelli Tire

Stephanie Valdez Streaty

Director of Mobility R&D, COX Automotive

Allie Kelly

Executive Director, The Ray

Jamie Zinser

Vice President, Global Automotive, Novelis