Novelis has been honored with the 2025 German Ecodesign Award in the category “Product”. The award recognizes a prototype aluminum sheet made with 100 percent end-of-life vehicle scrap, specifically developed for use in exterior car body applications.
The award-winning product is the result of continuous research and development in close collaboration with partners across the entire automotive value chain. Today’s commercially available alloy Novelis Advanz™ 6F – e170RC for exterior applications contains at least 75 percent recycled content, sourced from a mix of pre-consumer vehicle manufacturing scrap and post-consumer aluminum from various end-of-life products. The awarded proto type is a breakthrough – Novelis achieved 100 percent recycled content by solely using end-of-life automotive material as a single source of scrap. This achievement proves that true car-to-car aluminum recycling is technically and economically feasible.
Established Recycling Loops and High Material Efficiency
Novelis has strategically established and invested in closed loop recycling systems to bring automotive production scrap back into its products and prevent down-cycling. As part of its ambitious Novelis 3×30 sustainability strategy, the company is actively promoting a fully circular economy to establish product-to-product circularity for aluminum. To this end, Novelis is also continuously increasing the share of end-of-life materials by creating new, innovative material flows and fostering transparent collaboration across the recycling ecosystem. This collective approach is essential to secure scalable access to high-quality end-of-life automotive scrap.
Aluminum recycling reduces energy consumption and CO₂ emissions by up to 95 percent compared to primary aluminum production. The introduction of highly recycled aluminum alloys therefore has the potential to significantly reduce the environmental footprint of the automotive industry and supports aspects of the EU’s critical raw material act.
The German Ecodesign Award is Germany’s highest state award for ecological design according to its organizers.
Published January 2026