Sophie Schmidtlin, CTO, The Future is Neutral talks to FISITA CTO Martin Kahl about sustainable mobility and the circular economy
One of the highlights of the 2025 FISITA World Mobility Conference will be the plenary panel discussion on sustainability and circularity in the automotive industry, featuring experts from The Future is Neutral, Geely Holding, Toyota Motor Europe, and Robert Bosch.
Sophie Schmidtlin began her career within the Renault Group in Powertrain engineering, later becoming Chief Engineer for C-segment SUVs, and then VP of Research and Innovation. As the Chief Technology Officer for The Future is Neutral, the circular economy company launched by Renault Group with recent investment from SUEZ, Sophie’s focus is on the technical challenges and opportunities of circular economy activities in the automotive industry.
Sophie chairs the FISITA Circular Economy Expert Group, and will participate in the FISITA WMC plenary panel on “Sustainable mobility and the circular economy,” alongside Dr Yuan Shen, CTO at Geely Holding, Umit Sengezer, Head of Circular Economy at Toyota Motor Europe, and Peter Lukassen, Director, Sustainability at Robert Bosch.
Ahead of her appearance at the conference, FISITA spoke to Sophie about some of the key topics of the panel.
Automotive is one of the most disruptive and disrupted industries; from your perspective, is sustainability being sufficiently embraced as a business strategy, or still seen as a compliance cost – and how do you see this changing?
That’s a very good question, and one that touches on a real strategic dilemma for the automotive industry. The cursor is moving between economic survival and environmental responsibility, but not always fast enough.