2022 Automotive News Canada All-Stars

All the foam, none of the carbon dioxide. That’s the goal of seat and interior foam manufacturer Woodbridge, based in Mississauga, Ont. Andrew Kee, a polymer chemist who is the company’s corporate scientist and director of sustainability, said it is perhaps the ultimate challenge for the supplier.

“A lot of people think sustainability is just out the tailpipe, but it’s cradle to grave. Our overarching theme is to get the CO2 footprint down in our foam.”

Kee has evaluated a number of promising materials, but has yet to find something that could scale up to mass production. Carbon-dioxide seat foam is “on the horizon, at best.”