Of all the senior jobs created amid the current transformation of the automotive industry, the one held at Stellantis by Alison Jones sounds like the one with the most grit and the least glamour.
As vice-president of Circular Economy, it’s Jones’s job to pull together myriad unsexy activities, such as used part sales, across the multinational giant's 14 brands (which include Alfa Romeo, Dodge, Fiat, Jeep, Peugeot and Vauxhall).
Her task is to satisfy a tough environmental brief to reduce consumption of raw materials while also growing her two-year-old unit into a profitable business with a €2 billion (£1.7bn) revenue within the next six years.
“This is a start-up environment within an established organisation,” Jones told the audience at our Autocar Great Women event last month.
What the current revenue of the Circular Economy business is Stellantis won’t say, but for context, a similar operation within the Renault Group, called The Future is Neutral, turned over €800 million in 2022 and has a similar expansion goal of €2.3bn of revenue by 2030.
In Stellantis, the business pulls together four strands that the company labels the four Rs: reman (remanufacture), repair, reuse and recycle.
The business is almost all focused on parts, at least initially. While the global operation headed by Jones does recondition whole cars for resale (for example in Brazil, where they’re allowed to overhaul prototypes), only the service element of that is booked as revenue, not the sale of the reconditioned car.
“The biggest [revenue] element is parts remanufacturing currently, and I think that will continue to be,” Jones told Autocar.
The laudable idea is that the more parts are reused, the fewer materials will be needed to make new parts.
Parts reconditioning has been going on for years, of course. For example, Renault’s engine refurbishment activities started all the way back in 1949. The difference now is that the environmental element has shifted front and centre, with Stellantis promising to halve the CO2 emitted per vehicle manufactured by 2030 and reach net carbon zero by 2038.
Stellantis cars built from 2030 will also have 40% recycled or bio-sourced content, the company has promised.
“It started because of our sustainability target,” said Jones. “It's also a profitable business.”
Stellantis isn't a company famed for grand expenditures, so Circular Economy pulls together a network of partnerships with vehicle dismantlers, recyclers, resellers and reconditioning experts. Jones currently oversees just 200 employees.
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