Source (All Images) | Exel Composites

Global composites manufacturer Exel Composites (Vantaa, Finland) has released a new white paper, “Sustainability in the composites industry: an overview,” called for a decisive shift toward circularity in the composites sector. The publication outlines how manufacturers can embed sustainability into design, production and end-of-life (EOL) management to reduce environmental impact while maintaining performance and reliability.

The white paper examines the environmental impact of composites throughout their life cycle. It highlights the industry’s reliance on virgin raw materials and the growing determination to address the recycling challenge posed by composites’ durability. Drawing on examples from industrial-scale recycling initiatives and Exel’s internal programs, the paper argues that design choices and efficient production are just as important as EOL processes. It emphasizes the need for transparency, interoperability and shared responsibility across the value chain to close these gaps.

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Authored by Exel’s senior vice president of technology and sustainability, Kim Sjödahl, the white paper brings together insight from research and operations teams across Europe and Asia. Sjödahl is a longstanding contributor to the European Composites Industry Association (EuCIA) and its European Circular Composites Alliance (ECCA), which work to establish unified sustainability standards across the sector.

“Circularity begins with design,” says Sjödahl. “The choices made at the start of a product’s life determine how easily it can be reused, repurposed or recycled later. Manufacturers must think beyond single products and consider how each decision affects the wider material ecosystem.”

The paper outlines Exel’s own life cycle approach as an example of how industry ambition can translate into measurable change. Initiatives include a partnership with Fairmat to recycle carbon fiber waste through low-energy robotic cutting, and collaborations with Alta Performance Materials and Owens Corning to integrate bio-based and recycled raw materials into manufacturing. Exel’s Finnish facilities now use exclusively renewably produced electricity, divert more than 99% of waste from landfill and reintroduce hundreds of tons of recovered material into production annually.

Against this backdrop, the report addresses one of the industry’s most persistent challenges: how to achieve recycling at scale. Cement co-processing remains the most commercially viable recycling route for composites, but more opportunities are developing all the time. Competing interests risk turning advocates for recycling methods like pyrolysis and solvolysis into rival camps, slowing collective progress toward circularity. Rather than setting these approaches against one another, Sjödahl envisions a common direction in which established and emerging technologies evolve together.

Sjödahl concludes, “Circularity will not be achieved through competition but through coordination. Every actor across the value chain has a role to play. By sharing data, aligning goals and combining expertise, the composites industry can move faster toward a sustainable future.”

View the white paper here.