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Circular Economy

The circular economy is an integral part of the transition strategy that TotalEnergies is pursuing to realize its ambition of becoming a world-class player in leading the energy transition and achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, together with society. By recycling and recovering waste, we help preserve natural resources, tackle waste-related pollution and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. The Company is also drawing on the circular economy to develop its range of biofuels, biogases and bioplastics.

We are focusing on three key drivers to fast-track the development of this new resource-based economy, namely recover the waste produced at our sites, increase the proportion of waste and residues used to manufacture biofuels and biogases, and develop an array of recycled and bio-based polymers for our industrial customers.

Our environment indicators (XLS)

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Recycling our waste

Promoting the circular economy starts with managing our waste responsibly so that it can be recovered and recycled. We have set ourselves the goal of recovering at least 70% of our production waste.

To meet our target, we are setting up waste management contracts and partnerships with international waste treatment companies in our host countries. This contributes to the local development of waste treatment processes, such as at our La Mède biorefinery in France, which now includes a biomethanization unit. This unit allows the biorefinery to recover almost 90% of the waste that it produces, in the form of biogas and digestate (used as an organic soil improver in agriculture).

We also promote the circular economy and the responsible use of natural resources in our relations with suppliers.

Find out how we recover our waste (PDF)

Using circular raw materials

Creating value from waste and residues is the second key driver in our efforts to promote the circular economy. Our goal for 2030 is to double the quantity of circular raw materials entering our facilities compared to 2021.

More specifically, this driver concerns the production of biofuels and biogas, for which we have set ourselves the following objectives:

to achieve over 75% of waste oils and animal fats in our biofuel production from 2024, compared to 50% previously, and
to be able to produce up to 2 TWh of biogas by 2025, mainly from agricultural waste.

Prioritizing the use of waste and residues from the food industry to produce biofuels avoids land use conflicts. In 2022, we stopped sourcing palm oil and its derivatives. We have also signed an agreement to supply our future Grandpuits biorefinery with circular feedstocks (used cooking oils and animal fats) with Saria, the European leader in collecting, recovering and recycling organic materials into sustainable products.

Biogas is produced by the breakdown of organic waste and mainly comprises methane. To secure our supply of circular feedstocks and meet our production targets in this area, we are forging strategic partnerships with companies in the agricultural, waste and wastewater treatment sectors.

77%

Share of circular feedstocks in our biofuel production in 2024

Find out how we create value from waste (PDF)

© Julien Lutt - Capa Pictures - TotalEnergies

Offering our customers a range of circular polymers

The bioplastics and recycled plastics that we market are intended for a wide range of sectors, including the automotive, construction and food industries. Our goal is to produce 1 Mt/year of circular polymers by 2030.

To achieve this, we are especially relying on our new “RE:clic” range of polymers, which comprises three product lines corresponding to three main plastics recovery technologies:

mechanical recycling (RE-use), which is ideally suited to the needs of such markets as the automotive and construction industries, processes raw materials from collective sorting and recycling centers,
Chemical recycling (RE-build), which processes waste that cannot be mechanically recycled, is aimed at other markets, such as food-grade plastics, and
bioplastics (RE-newable), which are biopolymers derived from processing biosourced fillers (vegetable oils, used cooking oils, etc.) and are now processed at the La Mède biorefinery (France) and soon at the Grandpuits plant (France).

1 Mt/year

of circular polymers by 2030

Find out how we give plastics a second lease of life (PDF)

Saft and battery recycling

TotalEnergies affiliate Saft produces innovative, high-performance batteries.

For nickel batteries (mainly used in industrial backup and in the rail and aviation sectors), Saft has developed a network to collect and recycle used batteries. Over 75% of the weight of recycled batteries is recovered for reuse in industry.

As for lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, which are especially used for electric mobility applications, they are now processed at the end of their life using the best available technologies. To go even further, Saft has launched a Research & Development project with its industrial partners (Orano, Paprec, MTB Manufacturing and the CEA). The project is aimed at promoting the recycling of electric vehicle batteries by recovering the residual metals (lithium and cobalt in particular) and reusing them to produce new batteries.

Find out how we give plastics a second lease of life