McLaren Racing has announced the development of a ‘Circular Car Roadmap’ in partnership with Deloitte, through which the racing firm will seek to develop a fully circular Formula 1 car.
The first-of-its kind project, described in its 2025 Sustainability Report as a ‘moonshot goal’, will see McLaren track progress on its circularity metric with support from Google, with the aim of achieving a 100% circular car chassis.
McLaren calculated its circularity metric for the first time last year, with the metric currently standing at 22% – ‘an encouraging figure’ that represents an increase in bio-derived and circular material inflows, it noted.
‘Achieving optimal waste management – where all material outflows are reduced, reused or recycled – would increase our circularity score to 50%,’ it said. ‘Moving beyond this requires addressing the volume and type of materials used in car design and production, which we have started doing for some key materials.’
Sustainability initiatives
Other initiatives outlined in the sustainability report include the launch of OSCAR (Operational System for Coral Assembly and Restoration), a semi-autonomous coral-seeding machine developed in collaboration with the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, which will significantly increase the amount of coral planted on the Great Barrier Reef annually.
Elsewhere, McLaren said that it achieved a 39% reduction in operational emissions compared with its baseline year, driven by the use of biofuel across its operated fleet, investment in sustainable aviation fuel certificates, lightweighting and freight optimisation and race calendar efficiencies.
Working in partnership with with Ecolab, McLaren said it now covers 100% of business travel and Formula 1 charter logistics through SAF certificates – equivalent to 1.1 million US gallons of fuel.
McLaren also reported a 14% reduction in total waste generation, while hazardous waste disposal from composites manufacturing fell by 40% on a year-on-year basis.
Racing mindset
“Performance is about how you achieve as much as what you achieve – and for me, that means delivering it sustainably,” commented Kim Wilson, director of sustainability, McLaren Racing. “In 2025, we’ve applied the same racing mindset to our sustainability programme, looking at where sustainability and performance genuinely come together, and where the two can strengthen each other.
“In racing, performance is built on discipline, precision, learning quickly and always looking for the next marginal gain. I believe that same mindset can help us not only make our sport more sustainable, but also create positive impact far beyond our own footprint.” Read more here.
