Giving the World a Green Makeover

The Machinery of Green Tech Initiative

11:45 03 March 2021

The entire world is still dealing with the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic while trying to keep up with the effort to combat climate change in all ways possible. All people and businesses need to become aware of the grave need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide for good.

 

We already can’t stop the increase in average temperatures, and there is little we can do to even meet the goals of the 2016 Paris Agreement, which is to limit the temperatures’ increase to 2 degrees Celsius or less by 2050.

 

While the world has the technical means to start working on the best solutions to reduce GHG emissions, it’s time to talk about the role of businesses in the effort, especially the role of equipment and machinery manufacturers.

 

The world needs powerful technologies, highly efficient motors, optimized cooling, and heating systems, and renewable-power generating machines to substantially reduce GHG emissions.

 

However, it’s developing and deploying all this equipment and technology that is the real problem. It’s still too expensive to use it at such a great scale, including solutions for carbon capture and greener fuels. Let’s see how machinery manufacturers can contribute to achieving the world’s GHG reduction goals with all this in mind.

 

Global GHG Emissions by Industry Sectors

 

Every industry sector that operates today is responsible for emitting two types of emissions:

 

• Scope 1 – includes emissions generated by businesses that involve energy and process emissions, including the methane production in agriculture and the CO2 emissions coming from the manufacturing and steel industry. Energy emissions encompass all the emissions of businesses that generate power sources like steam, electricity, heat, and all other emissions produced by vehicles and other means of transportation.
  
  
• Scope 2 – includes energy-generating companies and the emissions they produce.
  
  

At the moment, the power generation industry is a case on its own as it alone produces 30% of total GHG emissions, along with its customers. On the other hand, transportation, buildings, and manufacturing are among the largest GHG emitters as well.

 

How to Gain Leverage

 

There is an array of existing technological advantages that businesses from various industries can use to reduce their carbon footprint, from green fuels to using electric vehicles. The problem is that some of these solutions aren’t yet fully developed for these companies.

 

It’s necessary to do thorough research on how machinery manufacturers can help lower GHG emissions and how these solutions can contribute to each sector to produce the greatest impact on the overall GHG emissions.

 

At the moment, experts are working on analyzing the technical feasibility of the solutions and technologies industries use to reduce their carbon footprints. It all comes down to how willing modern companies are to implement new advantages and solutions. The truth is that all businesses should be working on going green just as they are tireless when it comes to improving their business workflows.

 

How Machinery Makers Fit the Bill

 

Each industry has an assortment of tools and actions that can help reduce GHG emissions. Each of the industries will have to do its part to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goals, and the only way they can do that is to harness the power of the modern technology at their disposal.

 

However, this is going to be a lengthy process, so the best way is to start with the most feasible levers at hand. Each industry sector will need to make significant investments to provide productive value, feasibility, and efficiency needed to reduce their carbon footprints.

 

One of the best solutions is to stop manufacturing products, goods, and equipment that increase GHG emissions and rely on global recycling. Instead of buying new machines, industries should consider investing in used machinery.

 

The more we increase the reuse and recycling of all types of materials, the more benefits we can reap from such actions. More importantly, buying used machinery, like used waterjets, machine tools, coolants, etc, contributes to reducing the need for raw and sourcing materials usage.

 

Instead of making new machines, machinery makers should focus more on making goods with recycled materials and providing reusable machinery products to help reduce GHG emissions. Using recycled materials for production is cost-efficient, less process-intensive, and energy-consuming than using virgin and raw materials.

 

There’s no need to mine for materials and contribute to the pollution when you can either sell used machines or use recycled materials to make new, green-friendly ones. Recycling has already proven to be a highly economically viable solution in the paper, aluminum, steel, and iron industries.

 

The demand for recycling and used machines is rapidly increasing as well as the need for recycled materials.

 

Conclusion

 

Even with all these measures, solutions, and incentives, machinery manufacturers and designers can’t make climate change and GHG emission problems go away on their own. This is a global and mutual effort that all industries and companies must take to make the world a healthy place for living.

 

Aside from working on reducing global pollution, there is a huge opportunity in all this for machinery makers. If they are able to capture these opportunities, they could ensure new sources of growth while doing something good for the benefit of the whole world.