It is the responsibility of manufacturing leadership to refine processes, make them leaner, and lower their facility’s carbon footprint—and to do that, they’ll need the help of facilities managers.
Many conventional practices have become so embedded in the sector that their wastefulness is overlooked. It is time to think critically about how these procedures impact the planet and the bottom line. The following five tips provide a flexible and scalable framework for facilities managers to improve operational sustainability and drive positive change.
1. Optimize Energy Consumption
Massive lighting, automated robotics, and many other components of a manufacturing facility require significant power. Lighting is one of the worst offenders—switching to more energy-efficient LED lighting can save manufacturers up to 60% on energy expenses. Facilities managers can also replace other equipment with low-energy alternatives, including HVAC systems. They should also consider replacing any fuel-powered equipment, such as forklifts and similar vehicles, with electric alternatives.
One of the most impactful moves a facility can make is adopting on-site renewable energy with battery energy storage solutions to reserve extra electricity the plant produces. This storage can mitigate many utility expenses while powering the operation with zero-carbon electricity.
The implementation would be a game-changer for industries like chemical or geothermal power production. Harsh environments, like these, can experience temperatures ranging from -40° C to 125°C, resulting in high energy demand. These circumstances put the equipment and employees under harsh conditions and additional stress.
2. Implement Comprehensive Waste Reduction and Recycling Programs
Production floors, logistics teams, warehouses, and supply chains all generate waste, with few having the robust management solutions they need. Items as small as batteries accumulate throughout the value chain, contributing to crises such as e-waste and other forms of waste. Around 62 million tons of e-waste were generated worldwide in 2022, with less than a quarter recycled. The big-picture trash problem includes corrugate, metal, chemicals, and countless other waste categories that are rarely managed sustainably or purposefully.
Facilities must conduct waste audits to determine how much and what types of debris they produce. Then, they must design two strategies. The first is a lean manufacturing approach to cut waste generated from production, and the second is a circular recycling program and culture. Food should also be composted. In addition, many organizations have implemented the zero-landfill strategy as a model of operational excellence.
3. Conserve Water
While water is a renewable resource, facilities managers should not treat it as such. It is becoming scarcer by the day, and manufacturing facilities can make matters worse if they are not mindful of their water use. In the United States, estimates indicate that industrial water use exceeds 18.2 billion gallons per day. As equipment increasingly uses water-based solutions such as hydraulics and liquid cooling, conservation has never been more critical. Operations can implement these techniques to cut expenditure:
- Install water-efficient fixtures;
- Incorporate water-recycling peripherals in machinery;
- Use leak detection sensors and auditing to prevent losses; and
- Observe landscaping water needs.
4. Adopt Sustainable Maintenance Practices
Maintenance can be one of the most wasteful aspects of production. While preventive strategies are often beneficial for preventing failures, they are sometimes performed too frequently, resulting in wasted spare parts or fuel. Even the cleaning products technicians use are often not eco-friendly, as they contain polluting chemicals. Using assets like artificial intelligence to refine maintenance schedules to better align with equipment needs can cut downtime and prevent waste from excessive maintenance or equipment failures.
5. Leverage Technology for Monitoring and Management
Sustainable operations rely on data to help with decision-making. Facilities managers should know which areas create greater inefficiencies and carbon emissions than others. Many manufacturers use building management systems to monitor their performance, gathering metrics such as average temperatures, water use, security needs, and more. These culminate into actionable insights teams can use to cut wasteful processes.
Automation also helps uncover opportunities for sustainability improvements. Over 75% of all commercial buildings lack a building automation system to manage HVAC and lighting systems sustainably, and only 13% of small to midsize entities have one. The majority of the industry has yet to acknowledge the workflow habits and building behaviors that could be requiring more resources to run. Automated systems can detect everything from a building envelope breach to low energy utilization in a robot and quickly respond, making the facility more sustainable.
The Path to Operational Excellence
Lowering a facility’s environmental impacts is straightforward when facilities managers aim to streamline operations. Oftentimes, reduced emissions are a side effect of making equipment more productive and workflows more intuitive. Every tactic is simple to start and can gradually build into more savings over time.
Zac Amos covers smart homes, cybersecurity, and other trending tech topics and is the features editor at ReHack. For more of his work, follow him on X or LinkedIn.