Ford to Use Interface Recycled Seat Fabric Next Ye
Santa Monica, CA, May 12, 2006--Ford Motor Company will introduce increasingly sustainable seating surfaces in early 2007. The fabric, supplied by Interface Fabrics, Inc., is believed to be the first U.S. automotive application of 100 percent recycled fabric seating surfaces. It also significantly exceeds the Ford’s internal target of introducing seating fabrics with 25 percent recycled content into production by 2009.
“Using more sustainable fabric in production vehicles is yet another step in Ford Motor Company’s journey to long-term sustainability,” says Niel Golightly, director, sustainable business strategies. “Given the time and effort required to source, design and validate a new seat fabric, it’s a significant achievement
Lisa Nicol, a senior designer for Ford color and materials–sustainability, went outside the automotive industry to investigate recycled-content fabrics, touring the NeoCon commercial interiors show in Chicago. At the show, Nicol met with designers from Interface Fabrics, a company known for environmentally conscious fabrics used in office furniture.
“We were impressed with their corporate sustainability commitment and the appearance and quality of their fabrics,” says Nicol. “However, introducing a new fabric in automotive production isn’t as simple as pulling a fabric off the rack and cutting it to fit. Fabric for automotive application requires different performance specifications than for office furniture or commercial flooring.”
Accordingly, the color and materials team from Ford worked with a team of Interface Fabrics designers who had automotive backgrounds to develop the new recycled-content fabric. Like every new fabric, the Interface fabric was subjected to tests, including ingress/egress wear and tear, seam strength, color consistency and fade resistance, and even odor evaluations looking for that new car smell.
“The highest compliment we can get is that the new fabric doesn’t look like it’s recycled,” says Nicol. “Working with Interface, we were able to produce a seating surface with the same hand, attractive appearance, and durability of similar fabrics made from virgin polyester--but this is made from 100 percent recycled materials.”
Significantly, the recycled fabric was in some cases less expensive than comparable fabric made from virgin fibers. The Interface fabric will be featured on approximately 80,000 Ford vehicles, to be introduced in early 2007. Full vehicle details will be announced closer to launch.
According to Paul Bennotti, Interface Fabrics’ director of marketing strategy, the fabric Ford will utilize is produced using 100 percent post-industrial waste--defined as anything intended for retail use, but never makes it to the consumer. This can be anything from plastic intended for pop bottles to undyed polyester fibers that don’t make the cut for consumer use.
This plastic and polyester is processed, spun into yarn, dyed and woven into seat fabric.
Recycling waste otherwise intended for landfills has obvious environmental benefits. Interface Fabrics estimates that Ford’s use of post-industrial recycled materials, rather than virgin fibers, also will:
--Conserve an estimated 600,000 gallons of water
--Conserve an estimated 1.8 million pounds of carbon dioxide equivalents
--Conserve the equivalent of more than 7 million kilowatt hours of electricity
“The sustainability story is more than a piece of recycled fabric,” says Bennotti. “Like Ford, Interface Fabrics is committed to corporate sustainability with the intent of one day eliminating the negative impact its activities have on the environment. We are not sustainable yet, but we are making progress toward our goal through initiatives such as continuously improving our sustainable manufacturing processes--audited using EcoMetrics, and purchasing of Green-e TRECs (tradable renewable energy credits).”
