Set up to help nurture the next generation of engineering talent, Formula Student is a European-wide university competition, which judges students on their technical, engineering design, and manufacturing skills. For one group of students, the competition is also an opportunity to demonstrate their sustainability credentials. Hailing from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) research university in Switzerland, the EPFL Racing Team is the first Formula Student organization to have its own sustainability division, committed to tackling climate change.
“We all share a common passion for motorsport,” said Hugo Fenoli-Rebellato, who leads the sustainability division. “We’re also convinced that no matter the business you are working in, sustainability should always be considered. Most of the time, people think that motorsport is only about entertainment, but it’s also a big laboratory for innovation.”
Fenoli-Rebellato hopes that his team’s efforts will help to drive responsible innovation in Formula Student and beyond. To do that, he and his teammates set out to measure and reduce the carbon footprint of the team and its cars at every stage of development.
They began by manually calculating the carbon emissions associated with the current season’s competition racing car. However, the team wanted a more effective and reliable way of measuring the overall environmental impact of its electric formula racing car for upcoming competitions.
Dassault Systèmes provided an answer by helping them get up to speed on the new Sustainable Innovation Intelligence solution on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. This dedicated lifecycle assessment (LCA) tool allows them to examine which areas of the vehicle to improve and use this analysis to guide the eco-design of their next generation racing car.
Backed by comprehensive and reliable indicators, the EPFL Racing Team now understands more about the environmental impact of its vehicle and can compare different parts, materials and processes to identify hotspots and understand the trade-offs between sustainability and performance.
Read the full story to discover exactly how the EPFL Racing Team uses LCA to automatically identify and quantify carbon, energy and pollution flows throughout its racing car’s lifecycle and support eco-design decision-making.
Rebecca Lambert is a skilled content creator and journalist based in the UK. Since she was a young girl, Rebecca has been captivating readers with her words, covering virtually any and every subject matter.