TenCate is moving towards a fully circular value chain, recycling all end-of-life products into new, high-quality artificial turf systems. From yarn to end-of-life and back again. The goal is to not only recycle TenCate’s own products, but to ultimately recycle and reuse all legacy end-of-life artificial turf across Europe and the US.
A fully circular ONE-DNA product
Generally, artificial grass systems are made from various raw materials including yarns (PE), backing (PP) and coating (PU). This results in high-energy impact in production and difficulties in recycling. Our partner LimeGreen has launched a new product with our ONE-DNA formula: a circular artificial grass solution that consists of only one single polymer. LimeGreen generates a lower CO2 footprint during production and maximises end-of-life recyclability.
Michael Vogel, CEO, TenCate, says, “As the global leader in sports and outdoor living solutions, we redefine the lifecycle of our products and materials, ensuring they are never wasted or landfilled but instead continuously reused, repurposed, or recycled. We are dedicated to integrating responsible manufacturing practices into our production processes, ensuring that we minimize resource consumption, waste generation, and emissions.
“Not only are our turf solutions circular, we have also integrated circularity into our operations. We believe that sustainability is a collaborative effort that requires the active participation and engagement of all our business partners.”
Currently, elite field hockey is played on irrigated turf fields that use large quantities of water. The use of water on turf is considered excessive, but the playability and functionality of irrigated hockey fields is unrivalled and loved by players.
As the global leader in sports and outdoor living solutions, we redefine the lifecycle of our products and materials, ensuring they are never wasted or landfilled, but instead continuously reused, repurposed, or recycled.
To reduce water consumption, TenCate has developed an innovative, new zero-water solution, which retains many of the advantages of an irrigated field without the need for water. The technology is already approved by the International Hockey Federation (FIH), as it meets the requirements laid down in the new Innovation Standard for Dry (non-irrigated) Hockey Turfs. In 2023, the first dry (non-irrigated) full-sized hockey field in the world was introduced in the Netherlands under TenCate Company Greenfield’s brand, Pure EP.
Award winning social and environmental performance
TenCate’s yarn manufacturing facility in Dubai has a diverse labour force, with more than 350 employees from multiple countries, cultures and religions. A unique aspect is that all manufacturing employees live at the dedicated TenCate accommodation. In December 2022, the team in Dubai received the 4-star Taqdeer Award for their clear vision on managing the people aspect of the organisation. The award is a recognition for the exceptional labour welfare programmes, working environments and employees who have made significant contributions in worker welfare and productivity.
In addition, the TenCate factory in Dubai received the Gold Zero Waste to Landfill validation label by UL Solutions for achieving a 96 per cent diversion rate, raising the bar for all of TenCate’s subsidiaries. Waste is a broadly based industrial problem, which may have significant environmental impact if not dealt with appropriately. TenCate aims for all its manufacturing operations to be Zero Waste to Landfill certified by the end of 2024. View TenCate’s Zero Waste to Landfill certificate by visiting the UL Spot: https://spot.ul.com/
“Proud to be part of a truly exceptional team!”
Recycling partnerships
In September 2022, TenCate announced a recycling partnership with ExxonMobil and Cyclyx in the US, offering the first truly circular solution for end-of-life turf in the US. With ExxonMobil’s proprietary Exxtend technology, the end-of-life turf will be recycled into raw materials that have the same performance and quality as virgin raw materials. This means TenCate’s end-of-life turf can be reused to produce new high-quality and high-performance products.
In 2020, TenCate set up a similar partnership in the Netherlands with GBN. In this partnership, end-of-life turf is recycled and processed into new products, such as Ecocept. To date, almost 25 million square feet of turf have been recycled in the Netherlands as part of this partnership.
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