Sumitomo Rubber Industries (SRI)

Sumitomo Rubber Industries (SRI) is committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2050 by revolutionising its manufacturing processes and using sustainable materials in its tyres. In 2021 Falken Tyres is trialling the use of hydrogen boilers in a tyre manufacturing plant in central Japan ahead of a planned global rollout in 2023. This will see Falken harness hydrogen energy to manufacture tyres with zero CO2 emissions emitted. Its SMART TYRE initiative, meanwhile, is allowing Falken to move towards a 100 per cent sustainable range of tyres by discovering new materials that are fossil-fuel-free (increasing the percentage of biomass used) and working to extend the life of each tyre by using the world’s fastest supercomputer, Fugaku, which can perform 442 quadrillion calculations a second. This is being to extend consistent performance by accurately simulating molecular behaviour and chemical changes to create longer-lasting tyres.