Manufacturers can dramatically reduce carbon emissions through 3D printing
13 January 2023
A new report from industrial 3D Printing software company, CASTOR, has revealed that additive manufacturing could be the key to greater sustainability within the industry.
CASTOR has released the "2023 Sustainability in AM Trends Report", which reveals that more than a third of 3D-printed parts can reduce carbon emissions.
The report emphasises the environmental benefits of using additive manufacturing (AM) over traditional manufacturing methods, highlighting different aspects where AM has strong CO2 emissions-saving potential in complex geometries parts and spare parts that be produced on demand.
As an example, the report illustrates how the avoidance of the production and disposal of a single spare part over 10 years can lead to a significant reduction of three tons of CO2 emissions – equivalent to the emissions produced by 18,000km travelled in a diesel automobile, or 216 train trips between Paris and Amsterdam.
These findings demonstrate the potential for AM to make a significant impact on a company's carbon footprint.
Omer Blaier, CASTOR’s Co-Founder and CEO, said: “Business leaders are under increasing pressure to reduce carbon emissions – from stakeholders, customers, and from regulatory bodies.
“Companies must explore new innovative manufacturing processes if they are to become more environmentally friendly. We believe that the contribution of additive manufacturing to sustainability is growing, and we are committed to developing methods to reflect its benefits.”
CASTOR’s software enables manufacturers automatically to analyse their parts and determine whether production with AM makes sense, from a technical, economical, and now also sustainable point of view.
The research is based on CASTOR’s latest addition to the software, a calculator that reveals the amount of CO2 emissions that can potentially be saved by using additive manufacturing instead of traditional manufacturing.
As stated in the report, CASTOR’s Carbon Emissions calculator is derived by analysing parts through the various stages of their life cycle. The calculator’s considerations are aggregated from factors such as:
• Material production
• Product manufacturing
• Product use
• Transportation
• End of life of a part
The report is based on the data of more than 50,000 assemblies and parts that have been uploaded to CASTOR’s software over the past three years, the company gathered all the interesting trends that were identified and created a report that summarises insights into AM as a sustainable way of production.
This new innovation provides companies with valuable information and transparent sustainability reporting on their parts’ CO2 emissions, allowing them to drive more informed and sustainable decisions across the organization, and it is the source of knowledge for the informative and revealing data in this report.
You can find the report for free download at this link.
You can learn more about CASTOR’s new CO2 calculator here.