THE ZERO INITIATIVE NET ZERO IN MANUFACTURING

ENGINEERING AND MANUFACTURING CAN CONTRIBUTE TO NET ZERO, AS MANUFACTURING PLANTS, MACHINERY, AND SOPHISTICATED PRODUCTION PROCESSES ARE AT THE HEART OF GLOBAL VALUE CREATION EVERYWHERE. THIS FEATURE ESSENTIALLY REVIEWS WHY A DIFFERENT APPROACH IS NEEDED FOR MANUFACTURERS TO COST EFFECTIVELY ACHIEVE NET-ZERO CARBON EMISSIONS.

- SUJATHA VISHNURAJ

THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE (IPCC) paints a very stark picture for the future of our planet unless deep reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions occur in the coming decades. The 2015 Paris Agreement aims to avoid this by capping the rise of global warming to 'well below 2°C'.

"Industry is responsible for 23% of global emissions and represents the second-highest source of emissions after energy generation systems, according to non-governmental organization (NGO) Energy & Climate. At COP26, a decisive moment to spur industrial decarbonization, several decisions were made to improve the sustainability of manufacturing and achieve the net-zero emissions goal," Anders Dellblad, Manager of Sustainable Supply at Sandvik Coromant notes.

LEAN AND GREEN

The term green factories coined a few years ago, used to describe a manufacturing plant that is equipped with eco-friendly design and manufacturing processes that improve greenhouse gas emission, environmental pollution and energy consumption. In other words, a green factory is a greener workplace, with greener processes, producing greener products.

Here, "green" is not a hollow word. For a facility to truly be a green factory, it must display tangible ways to drive sustainable practices within the factory, the supply chain and across its customer base. For example, a company looking to build a green factory may invest in measures that reduce scrap rates and machine idling time by optimizing the factory floor layout, or it may take steps to generate, use and recover heat more efficiently, like installing highefficiency burners that also recover waste heat. It may also want to minimize the distances that parts travel across the supply chain, like COP26's green corridors proposal, or convert its waste into reusable material.