Improvements for the long-term

To demonstrate ABB’s solar capabilities, as well as reduce our own environmental impacts, more and more ABB facilities are installing on-site photovoltaic (PV) power plants. Currently, PV plants are installed or are being constructed at 18 ABB sites in 14 countries across Europe, Asia and Latin America. Globally, the installations contribute less than one percent of our annual electrical energy needs, but can contribute up to 50 percent of the installation’s electricity needs, such as in Hungary and Mexico.

ABB also carefully considers potential environmental impacts when investing in our global real estate portfolio. The ABB Green Building Policy guides site selection, building design and choice of materials in order to maximize water and energy efficiency, minimize resource use and provide a comfortable and safe indoor environment for employees and visitors. The policy guides new development, refurbishment and selection and management of rented space.

Several recent and ongoing projects demonstrate the benefits of this approach:

• At Lodz in Poland, design of a new transformer factory is improving energy efficiency by incorporating upgraded insulation, skylights, renewable energy generation, a building management system to optimize ventilation, heating and cooling, energy efficient lighting design, as well as ABB electrical equipment with lower losses. Projections show that, compared with a standard building complying only with local requirements, the new building will save approximately 1,000 tons of CO₂ emissions per year.
• A planned new HVDC center in Ludvika, Sweden will be certified to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold status. Similar to Lodz, design has focused on good insulation, use of ABB systems for energy efficient building management, renewable energy, and water management.
• ABB’s new headquarters in Budapest, Hungary is one of the most environmentally efficient commercial development projects on the Hungarian office market and the first one to be pre-certified to LEED Platinum level. Intelligent building control systems, including ABB’s KNX-iBus technology, solar panels on the roof, gray water recycling and innovative heating and cooling solutions all help to minimize impacts.

As part of our goal to steadily increase the efficiency of our own operations, we have set ourselves the target of reducing energy use by 2.5 percent per year. This includes both direct and indirect energy use, for manufacturing processes and to operate buildings. For 2012, we have included Baldor operations in this target, using the baseline established in 2011.

We achieved our energy efficiency objective for 2012, reducing energy consumption per employee by more than three percent from 2011. Gas consumption was significantly reduced and electricity consumption decreased slightly in 2012, despite organic growth in production and employee numbers. District heat consumption, although a small contributor to our overall energy consumption, increased by 12 percent.

ABB facilities implemented a range of activities to achieve these results. Among the most common measures: switching to energy efficient lighting solutions, investigating and enhancing the insulation of buildings, implementing or updating heat recuperation from machines and processes, and optimizing heating, ventilation and cooling systems, often using ABB’s own technology. We expect to see further improvements in energy efficiency as energy savings programs gain traction.

Emissions of SF₆ increased by more than 25 percent year on year. The majority of this increase was due to a 60 percent increase in volume from a particular type of production process. During 2012, that business undertook considerable work to adapt the design of the product and the production process, with the goal to eliminate up to three quarters of the SF₆ consumed. We await approval of the new design by the relevant certification body. We continue to pursue emission reduction programs at different sites, with actions ranging from improved handling and inventory procedures to leak detection and improvements in storage methods. However, challenges remain to ensure appropriate handling procedures at both ABB and customer sites.

During 2012, we continued to work with our logistics suppliers to improve the quality and availability of emissions data from cross-border transportation and air and sea transportation of goods. A Transportation Council of regional and Group logistics managers helps to guide and coordinate Group transport and logistics strategy and programs.

Logistics optimization programs have also been initiated at Business Unit (BU) level. One good example is the cooperation between our BU Transformer factories in Lodz, Poland and Ludvika in Sweden. The challenge was to find a more efficient way to load trailers to reduce the number of trips from Lodz to Ludvika and to identify an efficient use for the return trips to ensure that the trailer did not return empty. Now, the loading has been optimized, the number of departures reduced from five to two per week and, with cooperation of a third factory at Figeholm in Sweden, the trailers return with production materials for Lodz. Costs have been reduced by €400,000 annually and associated CO₂ emissions reduced by 70 percent.

In addition to existing programs to optimize modes and routes of transport, we started a project in 2012 to investigate packaging design. Improved packaging has the potential to reduce environmental impacts both through more efficient resource use for the packaging itself and through reduced transport emissions from lighter packaging and more efficient loading. The program is still in its pilot stages, with several ABB facilities currently screening the tools and methodology.

Greenhouse gas emissions from business air travel decreased by seven percent during 2012. Whilst there is slow progress in implementing action plans to reduce the environmental impacts of air travel, we are observing incremental changes. For example, many sites have improved or installed videoconferencing facilities to enable fuller participation in virtual meetings.

EN3 Direct energy use by ABB (Gigawatt-hours – GWh)

EN4 Indirect energy use: Consumption and losses at utilities (Gigawatt-hours – GWh)

Megawatt-hours (MWh) per employee

Direct and indirect^c energy use by type for 2012^a (2011^b)

EN16, EN17 Greenhouse gas emissions (kilotons CO₂ equivalents)

EN29 Significant environmental impacts of transportation (kilotons CO₂ equivalents)