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Originally Posted by unfoundnemo
Good question, I expect these to be competitive with the non-FSC alternatives, but the categories may be limited.
They're not saying they made any ground breaking developments in tire compound chemistry here. We know that natural rubber and rayon were already being used in tires. The FSC certification around the natural rubber and rayon used in the process is the news. In general, that means they are ensuring the trees were harvested using responsible methods (this may have been the case half the time already), but more importantly that the supply chain for the material was documented meticulously to make sure that these were indeed the material used for the item bearing the FSC logo.
FSC will have certain percentages the manufacturer has to meet, so it's not like they could just source the FSC materials, apply the procedures needed for FSC certification, use the same formula, and say they're covered across the board. If they have to use 30% FSC certified natural rubber to have an FSC logo on the tire, they may simply not be able to make a summer performance tire (at least not without substantial amounts of R&D which they would have been touting).
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Thanks. Will look to see if there are more forthcoming answers on this.