Manufacturing is often described as an inherently unsustainable process—and with good reason. Research shows that the production of goods such as plastics and automobiles accounts for about 33% of global annual energy expenditure. Further, nearly 25% of the carbon emissions in the United States come from the manufacturing industry.
The good news: It isn’t too late to change these sobering statistics. One step in the right direction is last year’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which provides incentives for manufacturers to become more sustainable. The legislation earmarks nearly $400 billion for federal grants, credits, and tax incentives for sustainability-focused innovation in manufacturing, domestic energy production, materials, and construction, with a goal of slashing domestic carbon emissions 40% by 2030.
From a high level, sustainable manufacturing aims to revolutionize the industrial sector by reducing key resources consumed during the manufacturing process, such as materials, energy, and fuel and time for transportation. This results in cleaner and often less expensive products. Sustainable manufacturing has gained support from activists, consumers, and manufacturers alike. In fact, consumers are beginning to make sizable purchases based on their perception of a product’s sustainability and how it’s made.
Moreover, manufacturers are increasingly encouraged to curb their carbon footprints through a combination of regulations and compliance, customer demand, and the significant incentives made available by the IRA.
Corporations are moving toward these opportunities to maintain a competitive advantage, as well as leverage the potential cost savings that sustainable manufacturing offers.
In a recent survey by Deloitte, hundreds of executives expressed that their company’s financial performance benefited from the introduction of sustainable practices. The combination of consumer demand and financial incentives has led many to seek sustainable practices and carbon emission measurement as a prerequisite to partnering with other businesses.
Additionally, sustainable manufacturing has gained momentum thanks to new technologies, industry collaborations, and regulations. The impacts of the movement are so far-reaching that even traditionally “old school” industries such as steel factories have set net-zero carbon targets and embraced hydrogen power and other green technologies. Evidence of (and motivation for) this shift can be seen in the recent U.S./European Union trade deal, which includes emissions-tracking requirements for the steel industry. Europe also has proposed plans for “digital product passports” that would mandate transparency as a core element of creating sustainable products.
Transitioning to more sustainable methods has a huge head start thanks to the mountains of data we capture daily. Unified analysis of factory performance data, logistics data, emissions measurements, and many other datasets that businesses typically already have can accelerate informed decision making and implementation of impactful changes.
Beyond data, design is another significant area of opportunity in the sustainable manufacturing formula. Making design decisions with sustainability as a top priority early in the product development process can dramatically reduce material and resource needs, and thus the final product’s carbon footprint, without diminishing its quality or increasing costs. In fact, the design phase of a product’s lifecycle can impact as much as 80% of its environmental impact.
Leveraging interconnected data and cloud computing to achieve more sustainable design and manufacturing results, Autodesk and Makersite, a German startup that uses artificial intelligence, data, and apps to power sustainable product and supply chain decisions at scale, have partnered to create a new plug-in for Autodesk Fusion 360. Designers now have the power to easily combine Makersite’s environmental impact and cost data with their designs in order to:
A comprehensive view of sustainable design and manufacturing requires companies to also focus on the impact of other aspects of their processes, such as suppliers and transportation methods. By taking steps toward using clean energy in manufacturing processes and electric vehicles for logistics, the impact of these contributors can be considerably reduced. A famous example of improving sustainability in logistics comes from the UPS On-Road Integrated Optimization and Navigation (ORION) initiative, which created a mathematically optimized routing system that reduced fuel consumption of UPS delivery vans.
Manufacturers can make an impact by holding their suppliers to higher environmental standards. This could include setting limits for supplier carbon emissions, and demanding that suppliers create circular economy networks to facilitate the recycling and repurposing of materials. For example, Tarkett Group’s carpet manufacturing brand, Desso, made headlines when it devised a “cradle-to-cradle” program for its rugs. Under the program, carpets are made with reusable yarn that can be repurposed multiple times. This includes a product buy-back feature to actively reduce waste.
In the factory, sustainable impacts can be made and measured down to a very granular level. For instance, increasing the role of robotic automation on the assembly line can decrease waste and improve sustainability. But, to do so effectively, it’s important to power these robots using renewable and clean energy sources.
One company that did just that is XLAM South Africa, which manufactures precut panels for commercial and residential construction using sustainable cross-laminated timber (CLT). Demand for the company’s product grew rapidly when word got out about the efficiency of building with prefinished components, meaning XLAM South Africa needed to increase its own production efficiency.
“Normally for these size CLT panels, you would need a large gantry-based CNC machine,” said founder and owner Jamie Smily. “Those cost millions of dollars and are not in our price range. So we bought an industrial robot, the kind used to do welding in auto manufacturing, put a spindle and saw on the arm, and now we can cut the panels precisely. We have nearly doubled our output, but the consistency and quality of our panels have improved even more.”
Despite this success, the costs associated with purchasing new technology and installing new machinery is often a deterrent to implementing these kinds of changes. Fortunately, as sustainability gains momentum, access to grants, tax incentives, and subsidies are more readily available. The IRA provides nearly $6 billion to create a new program to provide financial support for reducing carbon emissions at energy-intensive industrial or manufacturing facilities. It can help fund installation and implementation of new technologies or even early stage engineering studies to prepare a facility.
Among the plethora of exciting developments in the sustainable manufacturing category, some of the most promising technologies are additive manufacturing (AM) and generative design. AM enables companies to reuse raw material waste, reduce energy and environmental costs, and increase speed from prototype to production. Specifically, 3D-printing technologies such as fused-filament fabrication can often yield lighter, stronger, better-performing parts, while reducing material waste and costs.
Emerging technologies such as generative design enable designers to use the power of cloud computing as an assistant, helping them uncover new areas to explore for reducing the amount of material, manufacturing complexity, and often the weight of a product. As with the recent emergence of A.I.-powered chatbot’s such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, generative design-powered tools have recently become much more accessible to designers with features such as Automated Modeling in Autodesk Fusion 360.
Using generative design to reduce a part’s weight without sacrificing functionality has led to reduced materials requirements and supply chain-related fuel consumption, thus reducing carbon emissions throughout a product’s lifecycle.
A great success story that combines these two technologies comes from the MOnACO research team, which includes members from GE Aerospace, Dresden University of Technology, Hamburg University of Technology, and Autodesk. Used together, AM and generative design technologies reduced the mass of a large-scale aircraft engine’s turbine by more than 30%, while also reducing its complexity by consolidating more than 100 parts into one.
This is a positive step in helping the aviation industry align closer to international emissions goals, which is supported by the IRA. The new law provides $300 million to establish a competitive grant program for projects that develop, demonstrate or apply low-emission aviation technologies or produce, transport, blend, or store sustainable aviation fuels.
“Additive manufacturing offers the design freedom to build almost everything that might come out of a generative design approach,” said Dirk Herzog, a researcher at Hamburg University of Technology. “The technology has clearly demonstrated its potential for enormous mass savings, which cannot be achieved otherwise.”
While sustainable manufacturing is an overarching concept, implementation varies wildly depending by industry. Coral Maker is an Australian company that’s restoring coral reefs using additive and traditional manufacturing technologies to mass produce pre-made coral skeletons that help accelerate the coral restoration process. The company has been able to not only reduce the carbon footprint of these coral skeletons by using recycled stone waste from the construction industry, it’s also reduced transportation emissions by enabling local manufacturing of the skeletons close to restoration sites.
Lebanese engineering company Dar Al-Handasah Consultants recently revealed a 3D-printed five-meter smart bridge that captures data from sensors to create an accurate digital twin of itself. This is the latest outcome of a research project that has focused on using generative design, AM, advanced robotics, recycled polymers, and A.I. to make the construction industry safer, more sustainable, more intelligent, and more efficient.
Dutch design firm Joris Laarman Lab also uses the generative design philosophy to improve its sustainable impact. The company famously created a 3D-printed pedestrian bridge connecting two sides of an Amsterdam canal. Among the benefits were decreased energy and time in the design and validation processes, as well as the ability to create simplified structures using the printing process.
“At the end of the day, achieving greater sustainability in industry requires viewing the world from a new perspective,” said Tim Geurtjens, chief technical officer at Joris Laarman Lab. “We can move away from what we already know and start thinking with a completely open vision ...about what we really want to do, not what we are used to doing,”
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