ABB: Increasing Sustainability at Global Manufacturing Sites

With National Manufacturing Day being celebrated on the 26th September in the UK, and this day set to happen on the 4th October in the US, thoughts have turned to how the sector can improve and evolve.

Adding to this discussion is Fabio Mercurio, Global Head of Strategy, Sustainability & Portfolio Management Smart Buildings at ABB.

In this exclusive interview he reflects on increasing sustainability, circularity and decarbonisation at manufacturing sites around the world.

Can you briefly describe your role at ABB?

I lead strategy and portfolio management for ABB Smart Buildings, a division of ABB that offers solutions for safe and reliable energy distribution and for smart and sustainable homes and buildings. 

Here I am responsible for division strategy definition and implementation, portfolio management, sustainability, collaboration with startups, and other business development.

How are factory buildings readying themselves for the future and why is this important?

When we think of innovation in the manufacturing sector, we mostly think about industry 5.0, the Fifth Industrial Revolution, and an emerging phase of industrialisation that sees humans working alongside advanced technology and AI-powered robots to enhance workplace processes.

But manufacturing ‘processes’ are not the only area of the sector experiencing an uplift.

With one-fifth of the world’s carbon emissions coming from the manufacturing and production sectors, decarbonisation, circularity, and sustainability credentials are also high on the agenda and there has been much progress at manufacturing sites.

The digitalisation of buildings through connected technologies and building automation has a key role to play in helping to manage grid reliability, power consumption and operational costs, and also emissions levels.

Accurate information is vital to sustainability initiatives and technologies are increasingly being used to track utilities in real-time to analyse usage, understand the carbon footprint of sites as well as manage energy consumption, emissions and costs.

Why does sustainability matter to ABB? 

The need for more power and lower emissions is the defining problem of our time.

We at ABB provide technology, solutions and know-how that accelerate the transition to electricity that’s necessary for a net zero carbon future while keeping industry running efficiently, reliably and safely.

ABB as a company has a commitment to reduce CO2e emissions by 80% by 2030 and 100 percent by 2050 (Scope 1 and 2, compared to 2019 baseline). We are on a journey towards reaching net zero at our own sites whilst helping customers do the same. 

Our Mission to Zero™ program grew from grassroots efforts in 2019 at our plant in Lüdenscheid, Germany that produces electrical switches and sockets.

Line workers, with support from plant management, installed electric vehicle (EV) chargers, solar panels and battery storage.

They then customised the plant’s automation controls to serve as a smart energy management system.

The Lüdenscheid plant’s efforts decreased annual CO2 emissions by 750 tons (the equivalent of the annual emissions of 179 gas-powered passenger vehicles, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency), and became a blueprint around the company.

When it comes to smart buildings, producing components for these sustainably is important, especially considering the growing demand for more efficient and reliable electrical systems for new buildings, for the modernisation of existing buildings. 

The market size for global electrical enclosures alone is projected to grow from US$7.42bn in 2024 to US$13.15bn by 20322 driven by renovation, modernisation, new construction and developments in electrical distribution. 

So, one challenge is to meet demand while considering more sustainable production. What we do at our own manufacturing sites is key as buildings consume more than 30% of global final energy consumption and are one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions contributing 26% of global energy-related emissions.

Younger generations of employees care deeply about sustainability and how their companies approach the problem.

The results at Lüdenscheid were down to employees taking initiative.

The formal Mission to Zero program which followed really motivates our people. They’re very passionate about the topic.

The seriousness with which ABB approaches sustainability motivates the existing workforce and attracts future generation of recruits to want to work with a company that is actively changing the roadmap.

How is ABB tackling meeting demand while moving to more sustainable production?

We are decarbonising our own built environment through our scalable programme, Mission to Zero. 

Overall, we now have 20 sites across the Electrification business area; together, they have reduced annual CO2e emissions by an estimated 27,000 tons since 2019, and which is equal to removing around 7,000 petrol cars from the road.  Of this the Smart Buildings division of ABB has contributed to a reduction of 9,000 tons CO2e. 

We are opening new energy-efficient facilities such as our new injection moulding manufacturing site at Evergem, near Ghent in Belgium. This new plant replaces an existing facility and produces smart building components.

Energy optimisation, new equipment and a new photovoltaic plant are expected to deliver annual operational energy savings of more than 9,400 MWh. CO2e emissions reduction of more than 6,700 tons annually is anticipated due to solar panels, heat pumps, water cooling circuits and use of renewable energy.

The Evergem site leverages digital solutions that analyse a buildings energy consumption and optimisation and track buildings data and utilities in real-time and provides actionable insights to optimise energy efficiency. 

What are the results of decarbonisation, sustainability and circularity measures at ABB’s own manufacturing sites?

All around the world, driven by local teams, plants are focusing on improving efficiencies through energy generation, management and storage using ABB’s technologies and third-party integrations. 

In Santa Palomba in Italy, our production plant for ABB residual current devices (RCDs) and energy meters has adopted the net zero blueprint, reducing CO2 emissions by 675 tons per year. Since 2019, all electricity purchased at Santa Palomba has been from renewable sources.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) shelters in the car park help power 17 electric charging stations for the fleet of electric and plug-in hybrid company cars. On the company’s warehouses next door, more than 3,000 solar panels provide peak power of 1.52MW. 

In line with the European Commission’s Circular Economy Package, Santa Palomba sends zero production waste to landfill, having recently achieved ‘Platinum’ accreditation under UL 2799 (the Standard for the Environmental Claim Validation Procedure), and is looking at plans for waste recycling and reuse based on separation, recovery and disposal, and also via the production of secondary solid fuel (SSF). 

Another example is ABB’s factory in Porvoo in Finland, where CO2 emissions were reduced by 636 tons in its first year by combining digital solutions, electrification, and renewable technologies.

The site recycles energy from its factory production, featuring both a geothermal system and solar technology to utilise heat from air compressors and heat recovery from the cooling networks serving the plastic machinery.

Retrofitting the facility at Porvoo enabled it to decrease its total energy consumption by 21%.

The 6,600 square meter site producing wiring accessories and installation materials for the smart buildings market in the Nordics now utilizes 100% renewable energy.

Circularity is achieved by using recycled plastic waste as a raw material which is also reducing the site’s carbon footprint by a further 106 tons a year.

Our plant in Nogales, Mexico has reduced its Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 86%, thanks to the installation of 130 solar panels and the ABB Ability energy manager solution and is testament to the effectiveness of combining renewable energy sources with smart energy management systems. 

Who champions these initiatives and the decarbonisation at manufacturing sites at ABB?  ​​​​​​​

Following the success of our first Mission to Zero™ site in 2019, we decided to lead the way and set clear targets for our global operations.

At our own facilities, the ABB Mission to Zero™ program supports the company’s commitment to reduce Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions 100% by 2050. We are using the learnings from our own business to inspire our customers and our ecosystem to follow in our footsteps. 

When a plant wants to earn the Mission to Zero™ label, the ABB Smart Buildings team – aware that every factory constitutes a unique set of solutions, spaces and local conditions – conducts a rapid assessment to see if the right conditions exist, using the company’s sustainability blueprint to educate plant employees about the opportunities and pitfalls of certain sustainability technologies. 

At ABB, we built on the growing momentum for sustainability in the company and encouraged team effort to take it to the next level.

Sustainability programs are motivating – we all want to work for companies that strive to protect the environment.

We lead by example and put colleagues in the drivers’ seat. All our achievements have been as much about people and collaboration, as about technology.

The tools for meaningful change are nothing without the right collective mind set. All of these achievements have been possible thanks to our people. 

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