Faurecia has formed a joint venture with Interval, a major French agricultural cooperative, to develop new industrial uses for natural fibres such as hemp – frequently in nonwoven form.
Automotive Performance Materials (APM) aims to develop and produce bio-sourced raw materials to build on the advances already made by Faurecia in creating lighter, cleaner vehicles. Buoyed by initial mass-production success with the door panels for the Peugeot 308, Faurecia aims to actively develop its offering among all client automakers. Production in France is already underway and the business is set to expand to the North American market in 2016, with plans to export to Asia by 2018.