Developing carbon-neutral alternatives

We talked with Power Technique Business Area President Andrew Walker about our potential to reduce our customers’ carbon impact and the benefits this focus brings.

Andrew, how much is CO2 emissions reduction a part of your strategy today?

Our goals within the Power Technique business area are that by 2030 we will be carbon neutral in our operations, we’ll reduce the carbon emissions from use of our products by 50%, and we’ll offer a CO2-neutral alternative for every application of our products globally.

Andrew Walker - Business Area President Power Technique

Since Atlas Copco has focused on energy efficiency for decades, how much more potential is there for technological improvements in this regard?

Together with our customers, we are making the transition from fossil fuels to biofuels, new technologies like battery storage solutions, and electric-driven compressors. We are part of the journey towards a net-zero society.

Are CO2 savings a big part of the sales argument today, or is it all about reducing the customer’s energy consumption and thereby, costs?

Our most important sales argument today is energy consumption, which has a direct link with CO2 impact. The lower the energy consumption during use of our products, the lower the CO2 emissions.

Next to energy consumption questions, we get more and more customer questions about how we can support them in reducing their environmental impact. 

Is there more we can do to improve our customers’ energy efficiency and lower their carbon impact?

A well-maintained machine is crucial to optimized performance, to avoid extra energy consumption, extra CO2 impact, and downtime.

With more and more connected machines, data is giving us and our customers important information about how we can make our products and our customers’ applications more efficient.

The use of our Atlas Copco filters alone can reduce fuel consumption by 4-7% compared to other filter suppliers. 

What are you doing to limit our own carbon impact?

We are aware of power consumption in everything that we do. During the design of a product, when we install an assembly line or buy a production tool, and even during our daily work, we think of power consumption. This includes the standby mode of PCs, turning off the lights in empty rooms, lowering heating and cooling in winter and summer, and so on.

We also invest in green electricity – in purchase agreements and investments in solar panels – to power our factories.

Finally, we are moving away from the use of fossil fuels during product testing and instead using biofuels (HVO) to avoid CO2 emissions during our end-of-line endurance testing. 

We did a calculation of the amount of CO2 emissions that could be avoided annually if all potential customer applications were to switch to one of our most energy-saving products. Learn more about the potential impact here. 

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