Kal Tire launch the Maple Program
Company's new carbon calculator quantifies environmental savings when retreading tyres
Kal Tire have announced the certification of their new carbon calculator which is able to determine fuel and carbon emissions saved by retreading earthmover tyres compared with buying new. With that, the company is launching its Maple Program, which quantifies a customer’s environmental impact as they grow their fleet with retreads.
‘We have long claimed that our retread products are beneficial to the environment, but now we are able to quantify those benefits and recognize customers for opting to retread earthmover tyres,’ said Darren Flint, vice-president of tyre lifetime services and vice-president of European and West African operations with Kal Tire’s Mining Tire Group. ‘Retreading reduces a tyre’s operating cost per hour, and it has become increasingly important to customers to reduce their impact on the environment. We look forward to providing customers with actual data on the environmental savings they achieve.’
The Maple Program uses data from Kal Tire’s new carbon calculator to award customers with one to five stars according to the percentage of their fleet running retreads rather than new tyres. The scheme is being launched in the UK and Chile with plans to roll it out in other regions where Kal Tire operate. One of the largest quarrying groups in the UK has been benefitting from Kal Tire retreads for several years, retreading hundreds of tyres each year. They are among the first UK companies to receive the Maple Program certificate highlighting the amount oil and carbon emissions they have saved by retreading versus buying new tyres.
Two years of research and development went into the carbon calculator, which included analysing more than 125,000 Kal Tire retreading production records spanning the past 20 years. After a six-month approval phase, the carbon calculator was validated by SCS Global Services, an international leader in third-party environmental certification. The verification applies to all Kal Tire retreading facilities in Canada, the UK, West Africa and Chile, as well as their newest retread facility which opened in Mexico in October 2019.
‘The results were very positive, and now we can confidently share these oil and emissions savings with customers,’ said Mr Flint. ‘Our core goal throughout all operations is to prolong the life of the tyres that keep our customers’ fleets running. The Maple Program for retreads is just the first step in ensuring that the environmental benefit of keeping tyres rolling and out of scrap piles is both recognized and appreciated.’
Kal Tire, who began offering retreading services in the 1970s as a way to help customers keep tyres in production and reduce the total cost of tyre ownership, named the Maple Program as a nod to their Canadian roots. The company is also looking at incorporating other environmentally friendly tyre-management offerings into the Maple Program, such as its proprietary Ultra Repair technology that is able to repair large ‘injuries’ on tyres that would otherwise be scrapped.
