Lightweight Made in Europe
Challenges and Opportunities
23.05.2023
During JEC World 2023 at the end of April, A2LT participated as representative of the European Lightweight Association (ELA) together with representatives of the European Lightweight Cluster Alliance (ELCA) in the panel discussion „Lightweight Made In Europe: Challenges and Opportunities“.
The decarbonization of the mobility sector and other strategic industries is a priority to the European Green Deal. Lightweighting is a key enabling technology that allows the production of components that are less energy intensive and lead to lower CO2 emissions. Lightweight technologies can also improve resource efficiency and help companies boost their circular economy. But how can European lightweighting technology remain competitive on a global scale?
This was the question behind the panel discussion, which discussed the economic and sustainable potential of lightweight technologies from Europe. It also outlined how lightweight products and technologies from Europe can be made more visible on global markets and introduced more quickly.
Under the perfect moderation of Ricardo del Valle Zermeño, our Austrian experts Rene Adam and Martin Zottler together with Cecilia Ramberg (RISE Research Institutes of Sweden), Thomas Hipke (Fraunhofer IWU), Pedro Mimoso (PIEP - Innovation in Polymer Engineering) and Dirk Vogel (RKW Sachsen) discussed the numerous potentials of lightweighting in Europe.
A2LT actively contributed to the debate on the one hand with its expertise on the economic importance of lightweight construction and on the other hand with proposals for a better visibility of lightweighting in the European context.
Also the project DeremCo (De&Remanufacturing for Circular Economy Investments in the Composite Industry) was mentioned to contribute to achieving the ambitious goals.