The global carbon neutrality wave is sweeping across the entire automotive industry chain. Driven by various countries’ environmental protection regulations, OEM green procurement standards and the booming new energy industry, the tire industry is accelerating to bid farewell to the traditional high-energy-consuming, fossil-based raw material-dependent production model. Sustainable manufacturing with renewable raw material substitution, low-carbon intelligent manufacturing, and full-link traceability as the core has become the industry’s definite development direction. International authoritative sustainable certifications such as ISCC PLUS have gradually become an important endorsement for leading brands to implement green production capacity and open up the global supply chain.
Based on the general trend of this industry, Hankook Tire, which has eight major production bases around the world, has steadily promoted the implementation of green production capacity certification. It has successively completed the ISCC PLUS sustainable certification of four factories in Geumsan, Hungary, Daejeon, South Korea, and Jiaxing, China, and continues to expand the global sustainable manufacturing footprint.
Taking the E.Circle circular economy strategy as the starting point, we will implement low-carbon transformation from the production end, raw material research and development, and product implementation, and continue to practice the concept of sustainable development of the entire industry chain.
As a globally recognized sustainability and carbon certification system, ISCC PLUS focuses on the three major criteria of environmental protection, social responsibility, and full supply chain traceability, and strictly verifies the full-process management and control capabilities of bio-based and renewable raw materials. It is an international benchmark certification to measure the green manufacturing strength of enterprises.
Since the Geumsan plant in South Korea took the lead in obtaining ISCC PLUS certification in 2021, Hankook has steadily promoted the green upgrade of its global production bases.
The Hungarian factory passed the certification in 2023, the Daejeon factory in South Korea received the certification at the end of 2025, and the Jiaxing factory in China successfully passed the audit in April 2026, officially becoming Hankook’s fourth production base in the world to receive this certification, marking the full implementation of Hankook’s localized green production system in China.
The four major certified factories have uniformly introduced production plans for biocyclic polymers to replace traditional fossil raw materials, relying on ISCC
The PLUS quality balance management system enables the large-scale production of tire products containing a high proportion of sustainable raw materials without attenuating tire performance.
Among them, the Daejeon plant in South Korea has realized the mass production of racing tires made of sustainable materials by virtue of its mature technology. It supplies the Ventus series event tires of the WRC World Rally Championship, with sustainable raw materials accounting for 31%; and the Jiaxing plant in China, as Hankook’s green fulcrum to deeply explore the Chinese market, relies on localized production capacity to continue to expand environmentally friendly tire production capacity for the domestic new energy market, helping to upgrade the local supply of domestic green tires.
At the product implementation level, ISCC PLUS certification technology achievements have been fully implemented in Hankook’s iON new energy tires and high-end racing tire matrix.
As an original tire for the Porsche Taycan, the proportion of sustainable materials in iON evo accounts for about 45%; the proportion of sustainable materials in the iON GT tires launched in Europe has increased to 77%; the proportion of sustainable materials in the iON racing tires used in the FE Formula Electric Championship has reached 35%.
At the 2025 IAA Auto Show in Germany, Hankook unveiled a cutting-edge concept tire with 81% sustainable materials, constantly refreshing the upper limit of green material application in the industry.
Raw material innovation is a key support for Hankook’s sustainable strategy.
Hankook relies on the world’s five major R&D centers and cooperates with global chemical giants such as ROTOBOOST and Solvay to research new low-carbon raw materials such as hydrogen-based carbon black and recycled silica, and open up a commercialization path for recycled raw materials.
Relying on the accumulation of green technologies throughout the chain, Hankook has been selected into the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index (DJSI World) for seven consecutive years, won the EcoVadis sustainability rating gold medal for three consecutive years, and has firmly ranked first in the ESG echelon of the global tire industry.
In the future, Hankook will continue to deepen the E.Circle circular economy strategy, rely on globally certified production capacity and cutting-edge material technology, continuously reduce the dependence of tire manufacturing on fossil resources, support the “dual carbon” development of the domestic automobile industry with international green standards, and lead the sustainable transformation of the global tire industry.
