While everyone obsesses over the emissions from the use of petrol and diesel, Renault - together with its partner Castrol - is launching a new range of engine oils and lubricants that can trim the carbon footprint of such products.
How do they do that?
Simple - they're recycled oils. Or, as Renault and Castrol would prefer you to call them, 're-refined' oils. In fact, technically, these are Re-Refined Base Oils (RRBO).
How do you recycle oil?
That's something of an industry secret, but Renault and Castrol claim that these new oils are made to: "a standard equivalent to that of virgin oil. Combined with Castrol's expertise, these oils satisfy or surpass Renault Group's technical requirements while maintaining engine protection, performance, and warranty coverage.”
They're crucially between 14 and 24 per cent lower in overall CO2 emissions too, which is the crucial part. Renault says that these oils are part of its commitment to the circular economy, and that they help to enable used oil recycling, reduce waste, use less crude oil, and help lower Scope 3 emissions - emissions from a company's supply chain and 'value stream' rather than its own direct CO2 emissions.
How do we know that these oils are genuinely lower in CO2?
We know because Renault has had them assessed in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Product Life Cycle Accounting & Reporting Standard. Emission factors used for re-refined and virgin base oils are proxy values supplied by Environmental Resources Management (ERM), an independent carbon footprinting consultancy.
"This launch makes Renault Group the first [car maker] to provide its entire recent vehicle range with next-generation lubricants formulated with re-refined base oil,” said François Delion, Vice President Global After-Sales at Renault Group. "It's a true demonstration that sustainability can go hand-in-hand with uncompromising performance and quality, over the complete lifecycle of the vehicle.”
"By co-engineering these products, we're helping Renault Group meet customer needs today and tomorrow with high-performance, lower carbon, more circular lubricants for the automotive sector”, said Slawek Radon, Vice President Business Development & Partnerships at Castrol.