Pursue Raw Material Traceability and Transparency

Prior to sourcing materials, Goodyear’s Product Stewardship team, which is part of Goodyear’s Global Sustainability team, completes supplier reviews that include gathering safety data sheets (SDS) and ensuring the materials comply with all applicable global chemical inventories and regulatory standards, including the European Union’s Regulation (EC) No. 1907/2006 concerning Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) and the U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). Goodyear’s Global Material Science team approves material specifications.

In addition, through their management of change processes, our manufacturing facilities conduct environmental, health and safety (EHS) checks to help ensure safe use and compliance. Goodyear’s Procurement and Technology teams manage the governance of materials and sourcing.

At Goodyear, we strive to make an impact through our choice of the materials we use. We are committed to managing sourcing in a way that helps reduce environmental and social impacts and improve our global risk management. To that end, we continuously work to expand Goodyear’s requirements to include sustainable sourcing guidelines.

Our Supplier Code of Conduct includes our requirements related to human rights, environmental sustainability, health and safety, and business ethics, as well as our requirements related to competition law compliance, conflicts of interest and privacy, among other topics. Goodyear’s sourcing includes direct materials such as: natural and synthetic rubber; fillers; pigments; chemicals and oils; semi-finished goods such as bead wire, steel cord and fabrics; and indirect items such as services, equipment, maintenance, transportation, energy and utilities.

Supply Chain Traceability

Goodyear’s supply chain is complex, and Goodyear is exploring processes and technologies to enhance supply chain traceability, tracking materials along development paths from agricultural production to storage, distribution, processing, manufacturing and more.

In 2020, Goodyear planned to pilot a new system utilizing smartphone technology to assist in field-based data capture with smallholders. The pilot had been put on hold due to concerns related to COVID-19, including travel restrictions for the safety of our associates as well as our suppliers’ employees. In 2022, Goodyear was able to complete this pilot program with Rubberway, and now utilizes this platform for supply comprising 36% of our natural rubber spend.

For 2023, we are continuing to onboard new rubber factories into Rubberway and expect to be above 40%. Additionally, Goodyear intends to continue to engage with new suppliers and technologies to assess further capabilities related to traceability and preventing material from deforested lands from entering our supply chain.