Syensqo Signs Carbon Fiber Composites Recycling Contract With Fairmat
Syensqo, a global leader in advanced performance materials, has announced a strategic collaboration with Fairmat, a pioneering French deeptech company specializing in recycling carbon fiber composites. This new agreement marks a significant step forward in the sustainable management of composite waste and reinforces both companies’ commitment to advancing the circular economy. Under the terms of the agreement, Fairmat will take responsibility for recycling Syensqo’s UK-based carbon fiber prepreg waste. Through its proprietary recycling process, Fairmat will transform this high-performance composite waste into valuable raw materials for a variety of demanding applications—including in the sports, energy, mobility, and electronics industries.
This partnership highlights the growing urgency and industrial commitment to finding scalable and efficient ways to manage end-of-life advanced materials. With the carbon fiber market continuing to expand, the challenge of managing manufacturing and post-industrial waste has become a pressing concern for industries reliant on lightweight, high-performance composites. Traditional disposal methods such as landfilling or incineration not only carry significant environmental drawbacks but also result in the loss of valuable materials. Fairmat offers a proven, innovative alternative by recovering and reprocessing composite waste into new engineered materials—preserving much of the mechanical performance and drastically reducing environmental impact.
Gabriel Molina, Sustainable Development Director at Syensqo Composite Materials, emphasized the strategic importance of this new initiative, stating, “This new collaboration contract adds to our other recycling agreements worldwide and is integral to our comprehensive strategy to advance on composite materials’ circularity.” Molina’s statement reflects Syensqo’s broader efforts to develop a global network of recycling partnerships and sustainable waste management streams, aiming to make its operations more circular across its business units. In the UK, where the company operates a number of advanced materials facilities, including those dedicated to aerospace and automotive prepregs, this collaboration offers a practical solution to one of the industry’s most difficult waste streams: thermoset carbon fiber composites.
The Fairmat partnership is part of a broader sustainability roadmap being rolled out in all Syensqo operations worldwide. The company is already taking steps to lower the carbon footprint of its manufacturing processes and is implementing more bio-based and mass-balanced materials. Its composite materials are already serving a central function in making mobility solutions more efficient—ranging from next-generation electric drives and hydrogen fuel cell technology to aircraft parts optimized for fuel efficiency and emissions reduction. Outside mobility, Syensqo is investing in renewable energy infrastructure, electronics, and sporting goods that depend on high-performance but sustainable material solutions.
Fairmat’s CEO and Founder, Benjamin Saada, expressed enthusiasm about the new partnership, noting the value that Syensqo’s materials bring to the recycling process. “We are proud to partner with Syensqo and help them achieve a sustainable outcome for their UK waste,” Saada said. “Thanks to our proprietary and proven technology we will extract precious value out of their materials to create new engineered materials for high-performance applications.” Fairmat’s approach is based on a proprietary mechanical recycling method that preserves the intrinsic properties of carbon fiber, allowing the company to develop new composite materials with exceptional strength-to-weight ratios and a dramatically lower environmental footprint compared to virgin carbon fiber.
This agreement is not a standalone effort for Syensqo. It exists as part of an emerging global recycling and sustainability strategy being rolled out by the company in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Besides recycling alliances, Syensqo is also investing in novel resin systems from renewable feedstocks and is working diligently on enhancing the end-of-life recyclability of its product lines. These initiatives are part of Syensqo’s overall ESG ambitions and its drive to reach net-zero emissions throughout its value chain by 2050.
“We see in Fairmat a mature partner that offers a reliable and sustainable business model. We look forward to seeing where this new partnership takes us,” added Molina. His statement underscores the need for trusted and technically capable partners to enable real circularity in complex industrial supply chains. Unlike linear manufacturing systems, circular economy models depend on robust collaborations between material producers, recyclers, and end-users to close the loop and minimize waste across product lifecycles.
The collaboration also comes at a time when regulatory pressures on composite waste management are intensifying. The UK and European Union have introduced stricter guidelines on industrial waste disposal and are incentivizing businesses to adopt circular strategies. In this context, Syensqo’s proactive approach to recycling not only strengthens its environmental credentials but also positions it favorably in a market where regulatory compliance is becoming a key component of competitiveness.
Syensqo’s role as a technology enabler in the global shift toward sustainability is also gaining recognition. The company continues to support a broad ecosystem of innovation, ranging from lightweighting solutions for e-mobility to next-generation wind turbine components and consumer electronics. Through this new partnership with Fairmat, Syensqo adds another layer to its vision of creating a closed-loop model for composite materials—one where performance, profitability, and sustainability can coexist.
www.syensqo.com
www.fairmat.tech
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