By Laurent Serezat
Elise Moreau’s background explains the tone. She has “previous experience at Bosch on engine control, injection, and thermal management”, then joined Forvia to work on the Stellantis account, “for instrument panels and door panels”. Since late 2024 she’s “head of MATERI’ACT for Forvia”. She does not speak like a lab discovering the real world; she speaks like someone who has to pass the automotive gatekeepers—impact, UV, odor, process stability, and that one uncompromising judge called “series production”.
In Europe, regulation is finally putting torque into the system, and Elise is very direct about the timing: “In Europe, regulation was a bit slow to move, but things shifted a lot at the end of last year“. She points to the targets now shaping roadmaps: “The latest announcements set a 15-per-cent recycled plastic content target in new vehicles by the early 2030s, with at least 25 per cent of that coming from end-of-life vehicles. The overall target then rises to 25 per cent recycled content around 2040.”
And she adds the phrase that matters most if you’re trying to industrialize: “this is clearly becoming real something concrete”. Because without scale, recycled supply remains fragile; with scale, it becomes a stable industry.
That is also why Materi’act exists. Elise frames it as anticipation rather than reaction: “Materi’act was created in 2022”, and even more importantly, “even before the regulations were published”. The ambition is explicit: “to integrate recycled content… and create low-carbon materials for the automotive industry”, but with one non-negotiable condition: materials must “meet the performance requirements the automotive industry needs”. She brings it straight back to cockpit reality: “especially for instrument panels, we need high performance; we have impact constraints and UV constraints”. Her diagnosis of the historical gap is just as direct: “materials had not yet been developed while integrating these sustainable challenges”, which is precisely why Materi’act was created to accelerate the transition without compromising automotive-grade requirements.
The portfolio is deliberately built to be usable, not exotic. Asked whether they have ranges tailored by part type, Elise answers: “Yes, absolutely”, and she states the initial intent: “to create this portfolio of products for automotive that matches our needs”. She structures it into two main lines: “we focused on two product lines”. First: “compounds (polypropylenes)… recycled plastics and natural fibers”. Second “surface materials, an alternative to leather, such as TPO “leather-like”s surface”, where “we integrate both recycled content and natural fiber”. But the goal isn’t simply to offer something different; it’s to offer a credible substitute. Elise insists they worked “to offer solutions equivalent to the specification requirements of ‘virgin’ materials” and “equivalent in performance”. She also makes the business stance explicit: “we are qualified at many automakers”, and “we can sell them to FORVIA, to competitors, and also directly to customers”.
Industrial compatibility is the backbone of the approach. On rheology and process, Elise doesn’t oversell; she sets a clear target: “our goal is to offer solutions that fit into the existing industrial toolset”, so as “not to create special constraints just because our products are introduced”. She acknowledges that more innovative grades can require small adaptations: “for a product like NAFILean-R… we will need to adapt the mold design a little”, but adds the industrial reassurance: “we provide the full specifications to do it”. She also highlights an advantage of the Forvia ecosystem: “we benefit from Forvia’s expertise in injection on parts” to understand how to handle the material and push innovation responsibly.
The OEM reality is also clearly stated: “you should know we mainly sell to automakers”. She describes two purchasing models: “some automakers mandate the material” meaning the supplier doesn’t choose—while others “buy it to supply their suppliers, or require suppliers to choose this material”. And she doesn’t shy away from competition: “we also compete with the market”, which she views as healthy because it forces Materi’act to stay aligned “in competitiveness and performance”.
The NAFILean family, especially NAFILean-R, is where “lightweighting” stops being a slogan. Elise names the differentiation very plainly: “NAFILean-R integrates both natural fiber and recycled content. There isn’t even any virgin material in it”. She explains why fiber is not just a “green ingredient” but a mechanical lever: “natural fiber brings structural performance”, and “we can replace glass fiber”. Then comes the number everyone remembers: ” we have a 20-per-cent weight saving compared with an existing structural material”. She describes the qualification pathway in an unmistakably automotive way: “validate a material, then validate it on the part”, and she notes maturity: “today, almost all our materials are validated at the main automakers”. The next step is no longer lab work: “we are now in a sales-and-growth phase, and also increasing production capacity”.
Recycled “visible” plastics bring the classic trio—color, odor, variability—and Elise treats it as an engineering problem. On color, she’s pragmatic: “ we can make many colors; however, with recycled content it will be harder to achieve light colors”. She explains why: recycled feedstock must be selected against end-use needs: “what is my final need, so I know which source I will use”. The variability is explicit: “we work a lot on managing this variability of incoming materials”. The response is both digital and chemical: “we develop AI-based models to manage this variability”, and “we also adapt our formulations to the inputs to obtain the same product as output”.
She draws a clear boundary about roles in the ecosystem: “our ambition isn’t to do other people’s jobs, but to understand them and adapt the two industries together”. She also stresses why the supply chain matters as much as chemistry: “we must secure volumes and above all the recycling chain”.
Development priorities are continuous: more recycled content, better odor, less dependence on virgin. “ we are clearly continuing to develop our existing range”. And it’s not a one-off optimization: “we are continuously innovating to improve what exists”. She gives a concrete benchmark for cockpit visible applications: “for a visible instrument panel with impact requirements, we are around 40 per cent recycled content”, then immediately points forward: “we will try to increase that content… we want to move away from virgin material in the long term”.
On recyclability, Elise refuses a parallel world of special equipment. Asked whether recycled material can be recycled again: “Oui”, and then the key statement: “all our products are developed to be recyclable, even those using natural fiber”. She adds the industrial continuity principle: “all are recyclable using existing recycling methods”, and “we use the same injection machines and the same recycling machines”.
Price is where Elise becomes especially blunt about reality. “today oil price is very low… which means virgin plastic price is very low”. She adds competitive pressure: “a lot of polypropylene is now imported from China at very low prices”. Yet her adoption strategy is clear: “our goal is to be at iso-price”. She explains how: “we factor price in from the moment the product is created”; “we may seek cheaper sources”), but “their quality will be lower”, so “we adapt our formulation to compensate”) and end with “a competitive product”. She welcomes regulation for the most practical reason: “scale effects will also come with regulation”.
She keeps the creativity door wide open, then immediately brings it back to requirements. “regarding the choice of added materials, we don’t really set limits… creativity is our strength”. But: “depending on the need, we will have to limit”. For structural applications: “we use hemp because it has technical characteristics that meet our need”. For visible effects: “NAFILean Vision… shells, reeds… there is no limit… it depends on designers’ needs”.
Localization is framed as CO2 logic, not branding. “we try to produce locally”), and “the CO2 impact is localized as close as possible to factories”. She illustrates with a compact example: “for NAFILean-R on Renault’s R5: hemp in France, recycled polypropylene in France, and the car produced in France”.
CMF co-development is described as a classic OEM-grade funnel: “upstream discussions with CMF teams”; “validation on the material, validation on the parts”); and sometimes “we actually inject parts” to confirm behavior at part level.
Finally, Elise anchors credibility in time-in-series on natural fibers. “on natural fiber, we have more than 10 years of experience”. She adds that it predates Materi’act: “this started before Materi’act… a collaboration based near Dijon… already in series for 10 years”. On scrap and process stability: “scrap rates equivalent to the market… we don’t have higher scrap rates” and “we can inject this material on all presses”. That is the kind of sentence that moves a sustainable material from “interesting” to “approved for scale”.
And then she lands the real message: the material science is ready, but the value chain must survive. I’m keeping her closing statement exactly as said, because it already reads like an editorial then I provide the English rendering immediately after.
“In summary, we know how to integrate natural fiber. We know how to manage circularity, including end-of-life vehicles. Technically, it is feasible. We must accept that virgin material is no longer untouchable and sustainable alternatives can be competitive. The real challenge now is scale. The recycling ecosystem is fragile: recyclers are under pressure, some are already disappearing. Without volume, the value chain cannot survive. We are ready. The technology is ready. What we need now is the volume effect and regulations may be the trigger that makes it happen.”
