OREANDA-NEWS.  February 20, 2012. The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., announced today that its flagship BluEarth-1 under its fuel-efficient BluEarth tire brand had received the Pneu Expo Innovations Trophy for environmental actions at PNEU EXPO 2012, a tire-industry exhibition held February 7 - 9, 2012, in France.

 PNEU EXPO is the largest tire-specialized exhibition and virtually all major tire-related companies, organizations, experts, etc., including producers, importers, suppliers, service providers, systems operators and media, take part in it. Pneu Expo Innovations Trophy recognize excellence in three categories: environmental actions, shop equipment innovations, and service innovations - one winner per category. Yokohama received the trophy for environmental actions, which recognizes its efforts, products and services contributing to environmental preservation. The performance of the BluEarth-1, which delivers not only good fuel economy, but reduces the burden on people and society, as well as the company’s continuous efforts to develop fuel efficient tires over many years, have been highly evaluated.

 The BluEarth-1 was developed based on Yokohama’s global BluEarth concept of "being human and socially friendly combined with improvements to environmental performance." It incorporates Yokohama’s latest environmental technologies such as nano blend rubber, orange oil, aerodynamic design, AIRTEX Advanced liner and weight reduction.

 The new BluEarth approach of not only achieving good environment performance but also enhancing friendliness to people and society has been praised both domestically and overseas. The BluEarth-1 has been exhibited at the Museum of Science, Boston, U.S.A., since the fall of 2011 as a tire incorporating advanced, innovative environmental technology. In Japan, the BluEarth concept received the Good Design Award in 2011.