Executive Summary
The focus on environmentally friendly products and practices is impacting every industry, including lubricants and related fields. New regulations and consumer demand are fueling many of these changes, and companies must use a variety of strategies to comply and compete. Many readers report that their companies are developing new environmentally acceptable lubricants (EALs) as well as implementing their own sustainability targets, ensuring proper disposal and recycling and putting resources into research and education. The majority of readers say that their employers are committed to being more environmentally friendly without any hesitations.
Q. What types of things are your company doing to promote environmentally friendly practices or products?
Developing new lubricant additives.
We are trying to move to more highly refined vegetable oils or esters specifically in our water-based products. Vegetable-based additives can be used at lower amounts than traditional mineral oil, yet still provide similar or even superior lubricity performance. This leads to less emulsifiers required in a formulation, so the overall amount of chemicals in use decreases. With less additives, a formulation can be built to last longer in the sump and, therefore, produce less overall waste. All of these things are helping the environment while also helping the end-user.
Develop, market and promote EAL products. Production waste streams are captured and either sold as a repurposed product or regenerated in cases where that is possible. In offices and labs, waste is minimized through the use of recyclable, multiuse or compostable products.
Installing greenhouse gas reduction targets with a goal of becoming carbon neutral. Introducing biobased feedstocks versus petrochemical feedstocks in our manufacturing process.
We test products and lubricants to reduce energy losses and material degradation. Objective numbers that compare different solutions in terms of environmental impact.
Everything. It is the focus of our environmental policy.
My employer is working diligently to properly dispose of hazardous materials and to minimize the use of unfriendly materials.
Investing heavily in the production of renewables.
To what degree is your company concerned with environmental impact?
Not at all
3%
Somewhat
30%
All in
67%
Based on an informal poll sent to 15,000 TLT readers.
My company is developing EALs according to Vessel General Permit (VGP) and the European Ecolabel. For new product development, footprint, handprint and sustainability are scored.
No progress is actually implemented per se in the working of the university; the impetus is largely on research.
Lubricants drain interval extension programs. Promoting environmentally responsible products. Helping to implement waste reduction strategies.
All behaviors that fit within our ability to promote while balancing those behaviors against common sense.
Solvent recycling, oil recycling, proper filter disposal, secondary containment.
I am retired, but my answers reflect my last years of employment. List and define benefits. Help to reduce costs.
We are committed to fostering safety and protecting the environment and supporting diversity and inclusion in our workplace. Sustainability is important for our customers, our employees and our owners. We have a sustainability policy that promotes the use of environmentally friendly practices and products like: Reduce our water usage by utilizing efficient recycling chillers. Reduce our CO
2 emissions by using high efficiency boilers. Minimize generation of manufacturing waste by coordinating production batches and recycling tank washes. Use back hauls when possible for more efficient transportation. Use low energy and natural lighting. Utilize recycled containers when possible. Utilize low emissivity glass and double-pane window replacement. Commit to using cleaner production technologies. Commit to using bulk raw materials to reduce the waste associated with the packaging materials.
Utilize automation and digitalization (computers, virtual meetings, etc.) to effectively reduce waste while working, communicating, innovating, producing, evaluating and testing. Utilize less hazardous ingredients and processes when producing our products. Innovate products that are high performing and more durable with an emphasis on life cycle awareness. Obey all governmental laws and regulations.
Education.
Lubricants testing and condition monitoring.
Carbon footprint reduction, recycling and working with customers to help them reach their sustainability goals.
We now offer an oil reclamation service that includes collection, filtration, sweetening and quality control batch testing. This can reduce finished lubricant demand by as much as 50%-70%. Some of our customers are using kidney loop filtration during preventive maintenance schedules to keep products in service longer. We also have completed field trials to test energy efficiency of some or our synthetic products, most recently final drive and axle oil (FDAO) in haul trucks that showed a 3.6% reduction in fuel burn as compared to a mineral FDAO.
My company just recently installed a waste water treatment plant.
Development of biodegradable lubricants, efficiency improvements. Spreading awareness amongst customers, suppliers and vendors about the need for environment protection.
We have a solvent recycler for recycling solvent used in cleaning instruments and parts. We recycle metals and plastics. We are developing new technology for electric vehicles and many more activities.
Maximize virtual meetings/minimize air travel. Remote work also maximized. Minimized use of paper documentation. Design for recycling.
After the death of my first wife and two sons to cancer, I have devoted my professional life to developing an entire product line of lubricants and greases.
As the executive vice president product technology, my company is completely focused on the sustainability of people-planet-prosperity.
Recycling. Transport poll. Virtual meetings.
Publishing of some of the results of comparative tests conducted for environmentally friendly lubricants and classical petroleum derived ones under the same operating conditions chosen. We source a higher volume of bio-derived raw materials and have expanded the number of biobased products offered for sale.
We started a corporate sustainability initiative and are promoting improvements in water use, energy use and overall processing efficiency. We also are finding opportunities to use more environmentally friendly feedstocks whenever possible. In many cases, there’s an engineering changeover required, but the work pays for itself in time as maintenance and disposal costs are reduced.
What are your hesitations with using environmentally friendly processes and products?
Cost
42%
Challenging maintenance
11%
Negative reputation within my peer and customer group
2%
Nothing—we are incorporating environmentally friendly practices and products into our daily work
65%
Based on an informal poll sent to 15,000 TLT readers. Total exceeds 100% because respondents were allowed to choose more than one answer.
We are trying to minimize sound pressure level of gearboxes and test systems with optimized design processes under Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) norm to work in safety region for the environment.
We have switched to “closed-loop” lubrication systems and “right-size containers,” as much as possible.
As a hydraulics fabricating company, we routinely provide a quotation for supplying and commissioning our systems using environmentally friendly fluids. Unfortunately the customers rarely accept the high cost of these fluids and provide their own hydraulic fluid (or ask us to use a mineral-based environmentally acceptable fluid with lower environmental impact but more cost sensitive).
Carbon footprint and life cycle analyses for our products—well underway and increasing in scope across our portfolio.
Segregation of hazardous chemicals and their disposal.
We are investing in solar, electric vehicle charging and wind across the globe to become carbon neutral by 2035.
Reducing the amount of used oil disposal, promoting uses of synthetic fluids to extend oil change intervals and performance.
Advertising product, company culture.
All the brands we represent have sustainability credentials, be it biodegradable products or solutions that help companies to decarbonize or to clean up hydrocarbon pollution.
Reduction in CO
2 emissions set out as part of key performance indicators for the group.
Education and awareness regarding the need for related products and defining what these practices are.
My ex-company (I’m retired) has been developing environmentally friendly lubes for many years now.
Recycling of used test oils. Heat recovery on the hydraulic test bench.