You’re probably using things made from aluminium every day. It’s everywhere from our kitchenware, computers to the very power lines that bring you electricity. At Ampler, we use it mostly for the frame of our electric bikes. We do this because it’s lightweight, durable and recyclable.
When we did our Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) for the Ampler Stellar model, aluminium came up as one of the “hotspots” for climate impact. This means that it’s one of the main contributors to the carbon footprint of the whole e-bike. We decided to look closer into the industry and uncover the beneficial initiatives that seek to improve the way we make aluminium.
The Good, the Bad and the Circular
Engineers and manufacturers have been using aluminium for over 100 years. It’s in anything from cans to rocket ships. As aluminium is one of the most common elements on Earth, it’s both versatile and abundant. You can also recycle it over and over again, almost indefinitely without losing its properties.
In the recycling process, aluminium is melted and shaped into new products. Thanks to recycling, the International Aluminium Institute estimates that almost 75% of all aluminium ever produced is still in productive use today. So, aluminium is beneficial in a circular economy. That is, an economy in which materials circulate back into production instead of ending up as waste.
But, what’s the catch? Although we have good supplies in the ground, extracting the mineral and processing it into parts and products takes a huge amount of energy. Most of the time the energy used is powered by fossil fuels. For decades, aluminium has been cheap to produce while using fossil-fuel-based energy. In contrast, recycled aluminium uses only a small fraction (5%) of the energy that would be required for producing virgin aluminium. There are other issues too, such as human rights and deforestation to keep in mind.
Cutting the carbon intensity
Aluminium is an incredibly versatile material: durable, light and recyclable. Thanks to these characteristics, it has the potential to contribute to a lower carbon and circular world. However, it still creates about 2% of greenhouse gas emissions. We need to learn how to use it while minimising its carbon emissions. It’s a tough challenge due to how big the industry is.
One solution would be to use more recycled aluminium. In 2020 approximately 76% of aluminium used worldwide was already recycled. We probably use some amounts of recycled aluminium in our e-bikes without ever realising it. Some producers state that there’s not enough recycled aluminium at their disposal to meet the growing consumer demand. As the recycling of aluminium is becoming more common practice, the best thing we can do is to focus our efforts on getting the materials back into production through recycling at the end of their lifespan.
Thankfully, there are already industry leaders and groups in the aluminium sector working towards decarbonising production while driving more responsible industry standards:
- Aluminium Stewardship Initiative (ASI) sets global standards for responsible production, sourcing and stewardship of aluminium
- Mission Possible Partnership (MPP) aims to decarbonize the aluminium industry
- Green Aluminium Vision by the En+ Group, the no. 1 aluminium producer outside of China, sets a path to reducing the environmental impact of aluminium.
An important factor between these initiatives is the setting of new global standards and collaborations across the industry. They lay the foundations for a responsible supply chain, establish action plans for cutting carbon emissions, and set the pace by exemplifying industry leadership. The mission is hard, but change is on the horizon. We at Ampler are embracing the role that we have to play in this.
To conclude
Our job is to make sure that our e-bikes last the years to come and that their materials can be easily recycled. This spares us from being wasteful and extracting more minerals from the ground. To this end, we help our customers take care of their bikes by offering maintenance in our workshops, as well as by working with our partner network for repairs and services.
We’ll be sharing more insights about the other life cycle phases and what we learn along the way.