Reuse, remanufacturing, repair, refurbishment and recycling: circular economy solutions offer concrete ways to reduce resource use and minimize the environmental impacts associated with the production of new automotive components.
New LCAs commissioned by The Future is Neutral and conducted by Quantis confirm the environmental benefits of automotive circular economy solutions.
To measure these benefits, The Future is NEUTRAL, with the support of Renault Group, conducted Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) with Quantis covering various circular economy solutions applied to the automotive industry.
Following an initial publication of results in October 2025 at Equip Auto, focusing on the reuse of parts, remanufacturing and battery refurbishment, The Future is NEUTRAL is continuing this work with new LCAs covering eight families of remanufactured parts representative of THE REMAKERS’ portfolio. Unveiled in early September 2026 at Automechanika, these studies highlight particularly significant environmental benefits for components intended for electric vehicles, while also demonstrating benefits, to a lesser extent, for ICE vehicles. Conducted in accordance with ISO standards and subject to an independent external critical review, these new LCAs assess environmental impacts across five indicators: climate change, mineral and metal resource use, acidification, freshwater eutrophication, and photochemical ozone formation.
As circular economy activities currently represent a smaller share of the automotive after-sales market, the LCAs applied the cut-off approach: impacts from reuse, remanufacturing or reconditioning operations (including transport) were included, but no share of the original new part’s production impacts was allocated to the reused or remanufactured part.
Among the eight families of remanufactured parts analyzed, components for electric vehicles deliver the most significant environmental benefits:
- Remanufactured electric motors reduce environmental impacts by at least 67% for all five indicators assessed, compared with their new counterparts.
- Remanufactured power electronics for electric vehicles reduce environmental impacts by at least 47% for all five indicators assessed.
These results can be explained in particular by the high rates of reuse of materials and components whose production is particularly resource-intensive, such as copper and certain electronic components.
The analyses also confirm substantial environmental benefits from remanufacturing internal combustion engines, as well as manual and hybrid transmissions, with impact reductions observed across all indicators assessed.
“To accelerate the transition towards a more circular automotive industry, robust and objective data are essential. These new analyses demonstrate that remanufacturing can significantly reduce environmental impacts across all the indicators assessed, while preserving the value of components and materials. They provide insurers, fleet managers, leasing companies and large corporate customers with reference data to incorporate environmental performance into their decision-making and support the large-scale deployment of circular business models.”
Sophie Schmidtlin, CTO, The Future is NEUTRAL
An approach initiated in 2025
The new findings complement an initial series of analyses published in October 2025, focusing on the reuse of automotive parts, remanufacturing and battery refurbishment.
For the reuse of automotive parts, the results of the screening LCA conducted with Quantis showed that using reused parts instead of their new equivalents could achieve, depending on the parts concerned:
- A 45% to 95% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
- A 95% to 100% reduction in virgin mineral and metal resources use.
These results notably included exterior body parts such as bumpers, doors and bonnets.
Finally, the work on refurbished batteries showed that a refurbished battery could reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the impact on virgin mineral and metal resources required by approximately 95%, compared with a new battery. This analysis was based on a sample of approximately 1,000 refurbished batteries and considered the components replaced during refurbishment operations: modules, cables, fastening screws, and the upper and lower covers of the battery pack.
Data to inform professional decision-making
Beyond measuring the environmental benefits of different circular economy solutions, this approach aims to provide automotive aftermarket stakeholders with robust, transparent and comparable scientific data to inform their decision-making.
These findings can in particular support insurers, fleet managers, leasing companies and large corporate customers in integrating environmental indicators into their purchasing, maintenance and repair strategies, where remanufactured parts meet the required technical, economic and safety standards.
They provide objective indicators to assess the environmental impact of repair choices and support companies in defining and implementing decarbonization pathways that can reduce costs and strengthen long-term resilience.
The data generated by these analyses also provides a reference framework for documenting organizations’ environmental performance and circular economy initiatives, particularly in the context of their sustainability disclosure requirements, reporting and external communications.
Commissioned by The Future is NEUTRAL and conducted by Quantis, this work aims to provide scientific evidence of the environmental benefits of circular solutions and support their large-scale adoption across the automotive ecosystem.
By objectively assessing the environmental performance of reuse, remanufacturing and repair, this work helps make the circular economy a tangible lever for competitiveness and decarbonization. It contributes to preserving the value of vehicles, their components and materials, while addressing the environmental, economic and resource security challenges facing the automotive industry.
