Starting the Process
A critical tool for success is the designation of a specific per- son to facilitate the expanded effort of green and sustainable activities for the company. Preferably, the person’s sole job responsibility should be the development and implementa- tion of green activities. If the organization’s size does not permit this dedicated staff position, then oversight of green activities may need to be designated as a specific individu- al’s part-time responsibilities.
From the bottom up, every employee needs to see and be- lieve that the company demands a significant improvement in how materials and energy are used. Policies and proce- dures that define the proper daily actions need to be estab- lished in all operational areas including Purchasing, Market- ing, Engineering, Maintenance, and Production.
Measurement System
An important step in green management is the creation of a measurement system for greenness. In the example of en- ergy, our traditional engineering system uses terms such as Kwh, therms and Btu’s consumed. While still excellent units of measure, new green energy terms have become popular to assist in the public’s understanding.
Measurements described in cars taken off the road, trees planted, and numbers of homes heated have become popu- lar comparisons to gauge a company’s success. For the pure engineer, these new energy terms may be hard to adapt to, but they have become the language of the green community that must be used to communicate. A good example of these types of comparison systems can be accessed at http://www.
epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-resources/calculator.html.
At a rapid pace, energy-use measurement systems are becoming more advanced and specific to your operation. Besides data available for a wide spectrum of industries, data is now available for specific regional energy provid- ers. The result of this is the potential for the development of a relatively unique carbon footprint for the production of your facility’s electricity. Utilizing the specific carbon
information for your energy provider can be as easy as using a reference such as the U.S. EPA’s eGRIDweb at
http://cfpub.epa.gov/egridweb/. The availability of these tools can provide great assistance in communicating green energy improvements with external parties.
It is becoming common that measurements for tracking many attributes of greenness (energy use and beyond) need also be put in place for communication to the pub- lic. Providing the public with transparent information that measures the quantitative aspects of resource manage- ment within the organization is making sense to many forward-thinking companies. Even though it is an im- portant aspect of our industry, this type of reporting goes beyond just energy use to also include aspects such as material recycling and social due diligence efforts as an example. Organizations such as the Global Reporting Ini- tiative
http://www.globalreporting.org/Home are working to provide accepted reporting methods that assist in roll- ing all of this information together into a sensible format for reporting to interested external parties.
It is now time to roll up our sleeves and start becoming greener. The possibilities for operational improvements are endless to achieve a greener foundry operation. None of us is exempt from the potential to make significant improvements in energy savings and waste minimization. The tendency is to tell ourselves that we already have good programs in place, do a good job of being energy efficient, and are lead- ers within our industry. The truth is we all have big opportu- nities ahead of us whether we are a large mega-foundry, or a small-to-medium-sized casting operation.
Going Forward, Finding Ways
Significant capital spending is not the only way to realize savings and improvements. However, it must be recognized that we can work within our own model. We don’t need to wait for the silver bullet of new facilities or a new foundry. Gary Thoe, past President and CEO of ThyssenKrupp Wau- paca and an AFS Gold Medal winner, was fond of saying “Continuous improvement beats postponed perfection.” Many projects will yield only 1%-2% savings in either waste reduction or energy conservation, but sev- eral of these projects in cumulative will add up to substantial improvements.
(a)
Figure 2. a) Carbon footprint (tons CO2 furnace melt.
(b) ) cupola furnace melt and b) electric
Recently, several foundries made a pledge with the U.S. Department of Energy’s “Save Energy Now” Leader Program to cut their energy use by 25% in ten years. While this goal may seem daunting, many of these companies will find their success will be measured by the incremental identification and com- pletion of a multitude of smaller proj- ects, not full-scale facility overhauls.
International Journal of Metalcasting/Summer 10 9
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