Comment:  Formula 1 racing towards sustainability?

From: Dr Martin Kunz, former executive secretary, Fair Rubber Association:

Pirelli has announced that it would only use Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified tires in all Formula One races, with effect from 2024.

While this has been a good advertisement for Pirelli and FSC, the contribution to sustainability seems limited and the small farmers who produce the natural rubber apparently got nothing.

Increasingly, the production of natural rubber has become financially unsustainable for the growers – 85% of whom are smallholders.

It would be easy to make F1 tires truly sustainable – by simply adding a ‘fair trade’ dimension to it, with the premium going to growers.

A set of F1 tires costs a team around $3,000. Excluding the wheel rims, the front and rear tires weigh 9.5kg and 11.5kg respectively, a set of four tires weighs 42kg.

Hence, a ‘fair trade’ premium (as paid by members of the Fair Rubber Association) of €0.50/kg (dry rubber content) for one set of F1 tires would be at most be €21.00 – a cost-increase of less than 0.8%.

It is high time that tire makers realise that unless they pay a fair price to the growers, they may end up putting their rubber suppliers out of business.