Pirelli and Lidl-Trek team up to race FSC-certified tires at the Tour de France

Pirelli’s P ZERO™ Race TLR RS tires are the first cycling tires to ever be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. And at this year’s Tour de France, Lidl-Trek will be the first WorldTour team to race on FSC™-certified rubber, proving that peak performance never has to get in the way of sustainability.

Pirelli sought FSC™ certification for its top-of-the-line road racing tires as part of its in-depth sustainability efforts. Earlier this year, the company announced that all of its F1 racing tires would be FSC™ certified as well.

FSC™ certification ensures that the natural rubber in Pirelli’s P ZERO™ Race TLR RS tires are sourced from a forest environment and harvested sustainably, using methods that preserve biological diversity and benefit local workers and communities. Natural rubber is the primary component of the tires, accounting for 23 percent of the total weight. 

FSC™ is the most recognized global authority for certifying whether materials sourced from forests are harvested to strict environmental, social, and economic standards. The certification also verifies that FSC™-certified materials are handled separately from non-certified materials throughout the entire supply chain. A dedicated monitoring system has been implemented at all entry points and at Pirelli’s bike tire production plant in Bollate, Italy, near headquarters in Milan, to ensure that materials comply with FSC™ certification.

“You have to do it at all levels,” Samuele Bressan, Pirelli’s Head of Global Marketing for cycling, says. “From production processes, to stocking and warehousing, which often informs quality control in every single batch. It’s many, many layers that we had to adopt to make sure that we could keep certified materials separated from non-certified materials, going through every single batch of products and putting together the natural rubber with textiles without contamination.”

In the process of adapting to more sustainable practices, Pirelli made certain that it wouldn’t sacrifice performance. Their FSC™-certified P ZERO™ Race TLR RS tires will perform to the same standards that have helped Lidl-Trek to one of its best seasons ever, from Jonathan Milan’s ciclamino jersey campaign at the Giro d’Italia, to Elisa Longo Borghini’s monumental win in Flanders, to Mads Pedersen’s scintillating classics season.

“We are not compromising on performance to do something that looks after the environment,” Bressan says. “We’ve sought to achieve FSC® certification on our best products across our motorsport and cycling divisions. The tires we are supplying Trek are our fastest and lightest tires, with superior grip.”

Lidl and Trek, like Pirelli, are also committed to sustainability. Trek is on a mission to drastically reduce its emissions by 2032 and source all electricity from sustainable sources by 2030. Lidl is overseeing a vast number of sustainability initiatives across all of its global offices.

This partnership between Pirelli and Lidl-Trek represents a commitment by all three companies to support a more sustainable planet. There’s no better place to showcase those efforts than on one of the world’s biggest sporting stages this summer in France.

License number FSC™ N003618