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Aluminium International Today featured an exclusive byline by Suzanne Lindsay-Walker, Vice President of Sustainability at Novelis, highlighting the company’s strategic investments in recycling and rolling capacity to drive a more sustainable future. 

In her article, “Investing in a Sustainable Future: Novelis Increases Capacity and Looks to Maximize Recycled Content.” Suzanne outlines Novelis’ latest efforts to expand its recycling capabilities and increase the percentage of recycled content in its products, reinforcing the company’s commitment to innovation and sustainability. 

With major projects in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia, Novelis is strengthening its position as a leader in low-carbon aluminum solutions. The article highlights key advancements, including: 

Read the full article in Aluminum International Today’s March/April issue. Aluminium International Today

Suzanne Lindsay-Walker, Vice President of Sustainability at Novelis, recently joined The Green Room, a podcast by edie, to discuss the evolving role of sustainability in business strategy.  

In the podcast, Suzanne discusses how the company is bringing Novelis 3×30—our company’s vision to advance aluminum as the material of choice with circular solutions—into action. She highlights the critical role of aluminum in a low-carbon future and how Novelis is making first-mover investments in new technologies to drive sustainability and business growth. 

Listen to the full episode to hear Suzanne’s perspective on the future of sustainability, what motivates her work, and how Novelis is leading the way toward a low-carbon, circular economy for aluminum. 

In edie’s Green Room with Novelis’s VP of sustainability, Suzanne Lindsay-Walker – YouTube 

Hosted by edie editor Matt Mace, The Green Room features leading voices in corporate sustainability, uncovering key lessons, industry trends, and the personal motivations of sustainability leaders. 

Novelis Inc., a leading producer of flat-rolled aluminium products and the world’s largest recycler of aluminium, proudly announces the production of the world’s first-ever aluminium coil made entirely from 100% recycled, end-of-life automotive scrap. Developed and produced for the European automotive market, this breakthrough marks a significant step toward greater circularity and sustainability in the automotive industry.

This innovative pilot material is suitable for car body outer skin applications, meeting the highest requirements for surface quality and formability. It reinforces Novelis’ commitment to enabling a sustainable aluminium industry while maintaining the highest standards of quality, strength and performance. This achievement is the result of the company’s ongoing journey to constantly increase the amount of recycled content in its products in collaboration with industry partners and automakers.

The aluminium scrap for the 100% recycled automotive aluminium coil was sourced through the Automotive Circularity Platform (ACP), which was initiated together with thyssenkrupp Materials Services, one of the world’s leading mill-independent materials distribution and supply chain service providers. As an open platform, ACP aims to streamline access to high-quality end-of-life material for recycling by digitalizing the market for secondary materials, enhancing supply chain efficiency, and maximizing material recovery from vehicles at the end of the consumer-use cycle. 

Automotive customers are constantly looking for ways to decarbonize their products while keeping them light, safe and affordable, and that’s why they turn to us. Producing aluminium from 100% end-of-life vehicle scrap is not only a testament to our dedication to a circular future for aluminium and enhancing the supply of the critical material. It also is a groundbreaking achievement showcasing the potential for significant environmental benefits and the ability to meet the high-performance demands of modern automotive production.

Michael Hahne, Vice President and General Manager, Automotive, Novelis Europe


Novelis is now working to expand the adoption of this technology, enabling automakers to incorporate higher recycled content into future vehicle designs. By increasing industry participation and enhancing the supply chain for end-of-life aluminium scrap, Novelis aims to accelerate the transition to a more circular automotive sector. As a leading sustainable aluminium solutions provider, Novelis already supplies carmakers with products made of up to 85% recycled content, made possible through constant collaboration with customers, closed loop recycling systems for post-production scrap, and the growing collaboration with major suppliers of recyclable materials. We believe expanding the use of end-of-life scrap in aluminium production will further enable the automotive sector to reduce its reliance on virgin materials.

World's first-ever aluminium coil made entirely from 100% recycled, end-of-life automotive scrap

Recycling aluminium is the most efficient way to reduce its carbon footprint, reducing energy consumption and carbon emissions by approximately 95% in comparison with primary aluminium production. The introduction of 100% end-of-life recycled aluminium into automotive production has the potential to dramatically lower the industry’s environmental footprint while advancing a more circular economy.

By continuously innovating and investing in expanding recycling capacity, collaborating with industry leaders, we believe Novelis is paving the way for a more sustainable and resource-efficient future in automotive manufacturing. Through these efforts, Novelis seeks to strengthen its position as a preferred partner for automakers seeking high-performance, low-carbon aluminium solutions.

Written by:  Jamie Zinser, Vice President, Automotive, Novelis North America

To meet growing demands for green mobility, three elite suppliers have come together to advance sustainable, high-performance solutions for the automobile industry’s electric vehicle (EV) sector.

Novelis, Shape Corp., and Metalsa are now collaborating, testing, learning and advancing aluminum roll form-intensive EV battery tray concepts.   

The partnership between Novelis, Shape Corp., and Metalsa aims to improve EV battery enclosures in design, quality, weight, and go-to-market speed. The collaboration combines expertise in advanced roll forming, next-generation alloy development, and precision assembly, providing Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) with specialized knowledge in these areas. 

  • Novelis is the global leader in aluminum rolling and recycling, specializing in the production of high-recycled flat-rolled aluminum products;   
  • Shape Corp. is a prominent manufacturer of advanced, lightweight metal components, primarily for automobiles;  
  • Metalsa is a global leader in product and process design, development and manufacturing of structural components for the Automotive and Commercial Vehicles mobility industries.   

The partnership will utilize Novelis’ high-recycled content alloys to reduce weight and increase product strength, contributing to a more sustainable final product. Novelis recently announced its 3×30 goals with commitments to decarbonize operations, increase recycled content in all products, and invest in a circular economy.  

With the leadership of Shape Corp. and Metalsa, EV battery enclosure technology will now utilize multi-cellular structures to optimize energy absorption, incorporate flexible part design to enable tooling reuse over multiple platforms, apply precision assembly methods to ensure quality and minimize variances, and employ new bending strategies to enhance part formability and structural integrity.  

 Through Shape Corp.’s best-in-class material utilization and closed-section profiles, the codeveloped EV battery enclosure can realize lower mass and increase structural efficiency.  

Metalsa’s rigorous testing processes, including front- and side-impact resistance, leak detection, and structural integrity assessments, guarantee the enclosures will meet stringent safety and performance standards.  

With an eye on the future, adaptability and diversification, together, Novelis, Shape Corp. and Metalsa have a proven track record of rapidly advancing prototype technologies, which will shorten product realization cycles and promote faster in-market timing.  

Read more from our partners at Shape Corp.

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Engineering plays a vital role in driving innovation at Novelis and across the aluminum industry. On World Engineering Day, we celebrate both current and future engineers and their work to create a sustainable future. Novelis is proud of its work to help encourage the next generation of engineers to learn the skills needed for their future careers.  

As industries push for lower-carbon solutions, new alloys, process optimizations, and recycling, innovations are essential to meeting sustainability and technological advancement goals. These breakthroughs require a solid foundation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). That’s why Novelis invests in STEM education across the globe—to provide young talent with the tools, mentorship and resources to develop their skills and make a lasting, sustainable impact on our world.

Global STEM initiatives at Novelis:

Globally: Novelis has partnered with FIRST Robotics, an organization that has positively impacted 850,000 youth worldwide. The partnership helps provide hands-on STEM learning, mentorship from Novelis engineers and even incorporated donated aluminum into 28,000+ robot drive bases for the FIRST Robotics Kit of Parts.

Our Impact

By engaging students early on in their STEM education journey, Novelis fosters technical skills, problem solving, creativity and leadership—important traits for the engineers of tomorrow. This World Engineering Day, Novelis celebrates the bright minds impacting the future of technology and innovation.

Novelis, in collaboration with Sourced Economics, published a working paper via the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) on lightweighting vehicles with aluminum. Novelis’ Mario Greco, Global Technology Director, Automotive, and Kashif Solaija, Senior Manager, Sustainability and Commercial Excellence, Global Automotive, teamed up with Sourced Economics CEO John Frechette, and Head of Research Yifei Xu, to rigorously investigate and ultimately contribute to key academic and scientific literature on the economics of vehicle lightweighting. 

The working paper describes the characteristics of prevailing life cycle assessments (LCAs), which mainly forecast select life cycle costs associated with a change in a vehicle’s materials or design, and reviews notable examples. The goal of the paper is to introduce a richer framework for analyzing these decisions that emphasizes quantifying not only cost-based but also value-based considerations, such as improvements in vehicle performance. 

In its conclusion, the paper calls for a paradigm shift in automotive product planning focused on better analyzing and improving customer experiences – enabled by new and rapidly emerging data on customer preferences and demand. 

Read the full paper here: Link 

Please reach out to Kashif Solaija with any questions. 

 

Novelis Inc., a leading sustainable aluminium solutions provider and world leader in aluminium rolling and recycling, today announced that it has successfully tested using hydrogen fuel to power a recycling furnace at its UK plant in Latchford, Warrington. 

The tests were carried out as part of a UK government decarbonization programme and in collaboration with Progressive Energy, an independent UK energy company, and required the installation of new burners, regenerators, and furnace lining material. Using hydrogen instead of the same amount of natural gas when operating a melting furnace can reduce CO2e emissions by up to 90%. 

Exploring renewable energy sources, such as hydrogen, making first mover investments, and reducing energy intensity are part of our 3x30 vision to advance aluminium as the material of choice with circular solutions.With the significant expansion of our local recycling capacity, we are transforming the Latchford site into a prototype for high-recycled content and decarbonized aluminium production.

Emilio Braghi, Executive Vice President, Novelis Inc., and President, Novelis Europe

The use of hydrogen is not common in the aluminium industry today and we are very proud to be one of the pioneers to have tested this new fuel at an industrial scale and in a real-world environment. The results from Latchford will drive further research into the potential deployment of hydrogen in our recycling operations worldwide.

Allan Sweeney, Plant Manager, Novelis Latchford
Team Novelis Latchford with the first Hynet Hydrogen Ingot

With safety as the top priority of the hydrogen pilot project, several series of tests were conducted by blending different percentages of hydrogen with natural gas (30%-100%) to evaluate the impact on existing infrastructure, and equipment compatibility. During the trial campaign, several hundred tonnes of 3000 series scrap aluminium alloy were remelted and cast into sheet ingots. In addition, all relevant parameters were measured to assess any impact on the product, process, operating environment, and environmental emissions. 

Further downstream processing, including rolling and finishing, will be now completed at other Novelis plants in Europe to establish the real ‘end-to-end’ parameters of a hydrogen-based, recycled alloy production process. Following the full post-trial evaluation and assessments, a report will be released as part of the UK government’s Industrial Fuel Switching programme later this year. 

The demonstration project at Novelis Latchford is part of the UK government’s Industrial Fuel Switching Competition programme. Supported with a grant of £4.6 million, as part of the £1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio and the wider regional HyNet project, the programme is designed to support industry to decarbonise their operations through a switch from natural gas to low carbon hydrogen. As the UK’s leading industrial decarbonisation cluster, HyNet will decarbonise industry across the North West and North Wales through the production, transportation and storage of low-carbon hydrogen, and through capturing industry’s carbon dioxide emissions through Carbon Capture Solutions. Novelis has been a partner in the HyNet project since 2017 and is supporting the development of the regional infrastructure project.   

Novelis is also conducting its own technical feasibility studies into the use of hydrogen as a direct replacement for natural gas, and more generally, Novelis research and development teams worldwide continue to investigate the possibility of using plasma and electricity to supply energy to its production plants.  

As announced in July 2024, Novelis is investing approximately $90 million to double the recycling capacity for used beverage cans (UBCs) at its plant in Latchford. The project will increase the facility’s UBC recycling capacity by 85 kilotonnes per year and decrease Novelis Europe’s CO2e by more than 350,000 tonnes annually. The project is expected to begin commissioning in December 2026. 

Furthermore, as part of its new Novelis 3×30 vision, the company has set new ambitious sustainability targets to achieve by the end of 2030, including increasing recycled content to 75% from today’s 63%, reducing carbon emissions to less than 3 tonnes CO2e per tonne aluminium shipped, and continuing to lead the industry to circularity through first-mover investments. These are in addition to the company’s goal to be carbon neutral by 2050 or sooner. Along with using higher amounts of recycled content, decarbonization of the company’s melting processes and energy sources are important levers to delivering lower-carbon, highly sustainable aluminium solutions.  

A thought leadership piece by Daniel Kern, Vice President, Global Automotive Development, Novelis  

Traditionally, aluminum was reserved for luxury and high-performance vehicles. However, advancements in material science, recycling capabilities, and design innovation have transformed aluminum into a cost-effective and sustainable choice for all vehicle categories—from compact cars to SUVs and trucks. 

Novelis is proud to be featured in a recent World Economic Forum article highlighting the impact of the First Movers Coalition (FMC), which has mobilized over $16 billion to accelerate the adoption of emerging decarbonization technologies in hard-to-abate industries. The FMC aims to drive demand for low-carbon solutions in sectors such as aluminum, aviation, and shipping—sectors that are critical to achieving a net-zero future but face significant technological and economic challenges. 

Novelis, in collaboration with Ball Corporation and Alcoa, has played a key role in developing an innovative aluminum cup made with 90% recycled aluminum and 10% ELYSIS-produced aluminum, manufactured using carbon-free smelting technology. This initiative, featured in the article, exemplifies how strategic partnerships and technological advancements can lead to more sustainable solutions and further advance aluminum’s role in the circular economy. 

As an initial signatory and committed FMC member, Novelis plays a crucial role in supporting the coalition’s mission to accelerate the transition to clean energy solutions and reduce emissions from aluminum production. The FMC, launched during the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in October 2021, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum and the U.S. Department of State, brings together leading global companies to leverage their collective purchasing power and supply chains to create early markets for innovative technologies that will be essential in reaching net-zero emissions by 2050. 

Novelis has pledged that by 2030, 10% of its primary aluminum purchases will be near-zero carbon, emitting less than 3 tonnes of CO2 per ton. Additionally, the company has committed to ensuring that at least 50% of all aluminum used comes from recycled sources. Novelis has already exceeded this goal, achieving a 63% average recycled content rate in its products as of fiscal year 2024, further solidifying its leadership in sustainable aluminum production. 

Novelis’ participation in the FMC aligns closely with our ambitious Novelis 3×30 goals, which aim to increase recycled content to 75%, reduce emissions to less than 3 tonnes of CO2e per tonne of flat-rolled product (FRP) shipped and lead the industry with first-mover investments to drive circularity by 2030. 

Through our involvement in FMC, Novelis continues to lead the way in delivering low-carbon aluminum solutions that support the global transition to a net-zero economy. By investing in innovative recycling technologies, expanding closed-loop systems, and forming strategic partnerships, Novelis remains at the forefront of the industry’s sustainability transformation. 

Read the full article here: Over $16bn: First Movers Coalition sends world’s largest demand signal for emerging decarbonization technologies | World Economic Forum