Alcoa Wheels has donated 130 Dura-bright aluminum wheels to Yale University for the school’s campus-wide sustainability initiative. Yale is studying the environmental effects of the wheels, and is utilizing its campus as a laboratory for the research.
Yale established an Office of Sustainability in 2005 with the goal of reducing the University’s greenhouse gas emissions by 43 percent by 2020. Installation of the new Alcoa wheels at Yale began in the summer of 2010, and will continue through this year.
According to Alcoa, the use of aluminum wheels is expected to save Yale’s fleet of 30 vehicles nearly 1,000 gallons of fuel per year, which could reduce CO2 output by 10 metric tons.
“Aluminum is the most sustainable material for transportation,” says Alcoa Chairman and CEO Klaus Kleinfeld. “No other material offers the combination of high strength, low weight, and recyclability that aluminum provides.”
