Important steps towards sustainable production

Sustainable production is one aspect of the collaborative programme FFI (Strategic Vehicle Research and Innovation). The vision is for all production to be environmentally neutral, with reduced energy consumption, elimination of waste and a closed ecocycle for both energy and by-products. Various techniques and methods have been developed to achieve this.

Enviroman focus on sustainability

As a part of this initiative Swerim has served as the coordinator for EnviroMan, a project started in 2012. The following are some of the results:

• Knowledge of environmentally friendly cleaning of process fluids
• Cleaning of surfaces with environmentally friendly methods
• Knowledge of foundry sand and ash recycling
• Tool and IT structure methods for energy and environmental assessments

Increased understanding of environmental concerns

The project evaluation has shown that the participating companies have increased their understanding of environmental concerns in the areas in which EnviroMan has conducted field studies. Even companies that are not directly involved, such as suppliers, have gained increased understanding of customers’ conditions and expanded their general knowledge of processes. One of the companies to have benefited from the project is AB Volvo.

“There are many aspects of the project that we’ll continue working with, such cleaning of cutting fluid to decrease biocide usage. We’ve also gained a solid network of industries and researchers that will be very useful in future projects,” says Henrik Kloo, environmental expert at AB Volvo.