Sustainability Channel

PIRELLI SPONSORS THE "CHINESE FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP"

Tomorrow at the Hangai stadium in Zhengzhou, the whistle will blow to kick off the first Chinese Super League (CSL) sponsored by Pirelli, the soccer event with the biggest following in the country, with 150 million TV viewers last year and an average of 25,000 fans in the stands for each game.

Organised by the Chinese Football Federation (CFA), from this year and for the next three seasons Pirelli will be the league’s institutional sponsor as a result of a preliminary accord signed today by Giuseppe Cattaneo, managing director of Pirelli China, and Lv Feng of the CFL.

The objective is to further reinforce the image of the Group through sport, supporting Chinese football, accompanying its evolution and offering an international know-how through a collaboration activity. An initiative that confirms the strategy of a growing integration into the Chinese community and its social fabric.

Chairman of the Pirelli Group Marco Tronchetti Provera said, “China is one of the leading markets in the world economy. Sponsoring the CSL is a great opportunity for those, like us, who have an important industrial presence and relations with the local community, which have become increasingly deep-rooted and profound over time. The popularity of football and its power of aggregation makes it an ideal vehicle to contribute to enabling the Pirelli brand to enter Chinese homes”.

THE MUSEUM OF RUBBER IS BORN IN MILAN

Rubber is a widely used material in our daily lives. Where does it come from? What is it for? How is it transformed?

To provide answers to these questions and more, the new interactivity area devoted to rubber was inaugurated this morning at the Leonardo da Vinci National Museum of Science and Technology in Milan.

In the great Italian techno-scientific museum, a space is now active that illustrates the cultivation, production and use of rubber in the past and today, with historical objects, multi-medial positions, audiovisuals and interactivity.

Today, more than half the rubber produced is used to make tyres. Among the objects on display, there had to be a contribution from Pirelli, which has donated an ultra-high performance P Zero 265/40 ZR 18 and 10 Pirelli Evo 21 scooter tyres plus a Tipo N from the 1913-15 period, one of the first tyres to use carbon black in its compound. Pirelli has also contributed to the production of a video on the cultivation of rubber, as well as having offered its scientific support for the creation of the area itself relative to tyres.

The new interactive area devoted to rubber, realised by the museum in partnership with Assocomaplast (the National Association of Constructors of Machines and Moulds for Plastic and Rubber Materials), with a contribution from the Lombardy Region and the Milan Chamber of Commerce, inaugurates a period of cooperation between these important Milanese institutions and Pirelli in a commitment to disseminate technological culture among the young generations.
Education is one of the fundamental objectives of the museum, a premise Pirelli shares with its constant attention to scholastic and university education.

To know more:
www.museoscienza.org

METZELER ELEPHANT BRAND IS "BESTE MARKE 2009!"

For the second consecutive year, Metzeler has been elected the king of European motorcycle tyres. The ‘Beste Marke 2009‘ award has been made to the company after a survey carried out by ‘Motorrad‘, the authoritative magazine of publisher Motor Presse and a publication which has grown substantially in Europe over the last three years.

Divided into 160 categories, from brakes to crash helmets to riding boots, the survey asked the magazine’s readers to express their preferences on the basis of a number of important parameters, like availability, value, safety and communication.

In this year’s ‘tyre’ category, 65.8% of the 30,000 readers from 12 different countries who responded to the survey said ‘Metzeler’. A matter of great satisfaction and the result of the Interact™ communications programme, which enabled Metzeler to enter into direct contact with the world of the motorcyclist in 2008, involving them in events and initiatives on the web, like the Roadtec Z6 Interact™ competition and the 2008 Experts on the Road trip.

“This is a fantastic result and confirms that all our activities for this brand have been well received by the marketplace and it also shows what a strong value this brand in Germany represents“, stated head of marketing and sales, Michael Müller. “We see this title as an example of our focus on producing safe and high quality products which are engineered for motorcycle riders, by motorcycle riders. We value this award and will fight to achieve additional successes in 2009.“