Manufacturers are on a digital transformation journey towards the smart factory. Smart manufacturing is a flexible system that can self-optimise performance across a network, self-adapt to and learn from new conditions in real time, and autonomously run production processes.
Read this eGuide for a:
·step-by-step guide to getting started with digital transformation
·highly accurate track and trace solution to reduce shipping and picking errors.
The compact EXAIR Super Air Knife provides a uniform, high-volume, high-velocity sheet of laminar airflow across the entire length that is adjustable from a gentle blowing force to a hard-hitting blast of air. The energy-efficient design minimises compressed air use by entraining 40 parts room air to one part compressed air, providing an efficient way to blowoff, clean, dry or cool parts, webs or conveyors.
Designed to use only one-third of the compressed air of typical blowoffs used in cleaning, cooling and drying operations, the air knife can be instantly cycled on and off, further reducing compressed air usage and costs.
Even at high pressures of 80 psig (5.5 bar), the sound level is quiet at 69 dBA for most applications. The air knife is CE compliant and meets WorkSafe Australia and OSHA dead-end pressure and noise requirements.
Available in many lengths from 3″ (76 mm) up to 108″ (2743 mm), the air knife comes in a variety of materials that include aluminium, type 303 stainless steel, type 316 stainless steel and PVDF plastic.
Applications include part drying after wash, sheet cleaning in strip mills, conveyor cleaning, drying food products, cooling hot materials and parts, web drying or cleaning, environmental separation, pre-paint blowoff, bag opening/filling operations and scrap removal on converting operations.
For more information, visit: https://www.caasafety.com.au/products/super-air-knife/.
source http://sustainabilitymatters.net.au/content/energy/hot-product/exair-super-air-knife-477226451
The CEFC now has a role in the Australian Government’s Rewiring the Nation (RTN) infrastructure program thanks to a federal Budget capital allocation of $8.6 billion to CEFC for RTN-related investments, as part of the broader $20 billion RTN policy initiative.
Subject to parliamentary approval, the CEFC expects to draw on this new capital to invest in priority grid-related projects to fast-track the decarbonisation of the electricity sector and secure a strong and stable clean energy supply.
CEFC CEO Ian Learmonth said: “The CEFC has already played a significant part in Australia’s clean energy transition and this experience will be crucial to a successful push to net zero emissions.
“Transforming our electricity grid is one of the most important investments we can make as we transition to net zero emissions, providing a critical pathway to bringing low-cost renewable energy to consumers.
“As Australia steps up its ambitions to decarbonise, the CEFC will help deliver a 21st-century electricity grid, powered by clean energy and supported by the nation-building infrastructure that will enable it to thrive in the low-emissions future economy.
“The CEFC will also continue our important task of investing across the economy to cut emissions. In our first decade we made investment commitments of $10.76 billion, across some 265 large-scale transactions. After allowing for repayments and returns on our investment commitments we have access to $4.57 billion in investment capital from our initial $10 billion allocation, in addition to the ongoing returns from our investment commitments.”
The CEFC will lead the financial and investment aspects of RTN-related investments, working closely with the new Rewiring the Nation Office, AEMO and the Australian Energy Infrastructure Commissioner, which will lead on non-financial-related aspects.
Eligible RTN projects include large-scale transmission infrastructure, such as Tasmania’s Marinus Link and the Victoria-New South Wales Interconnector West (VNI-West), as well as energy storage, renewable energy zones and large-scale hydro storage assets. The CEFC has been closely involved in shaping the proposed investment structures in the Tasmanian and Victorian interconnector projects.
Image credit: iStock.com/Petmal
Sustainability Victoria has released the successful recipients of the Victorian Government’s $1.6 million Circular Economy Councils Fund. Initiatives being funded range from a circular economy program across 14 council business districts, to roving repair events and tool libraries, diverting over 16,000 tonnes of waste from landfill.
One of the recipients, The City of Melbourne, has received $217,000 to address one of the most complex waste collection issues in Australia and will implement a collection service for food organics in high-rise buildings over six storeys in the CBD, diverting a further 850 tonnes of organic materials from landfill, and improving processing infrastructure by over 2500 tonnes per year.
$167,500 of funding has also been provided to tackle mattress waste and will assist Swan Hill Rural City and neighbouring councils to establish a mattress processing facility that will help divert 75 tonnes of mattress waste from landfill and result in 15 kg steel recovered per mattress.
Sustainability Victoria’s Interim CEO Matt Genever said: “Councils are demonstrating great leadership in championing circular economy initiatives for their communities.
“A total of 32 councils are involved in these implementation projects, resulting in reduced waste to landfill and increased awareness of the role all Victorians have in circular economy activities.
“Small regional council solo projects and large metropolitan multi-council partnerships are all working hard to make an impact on diverting waste and increasing job and business opportunities.”
Other projects being funded in Round 2 of the Circular Economy Councils Fund include:
Full details on all the projects being funded are available at: https://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/circular-economy-councils-fund-funded-projects.
Image caption: iStock.com/maerzkind
Developing a credible sustainability strategy with bold aspirations, clear goals and defined programs is a big achievement for any sustainability leader. The real test of a strategy, however, lies in its ability to deliver progress. Progress that involves big leaps forward to benefit people, the planet and the organisation — not incremental moves of arbitrary milestones year-on-year.
To deliver progress like that, rallying stakeholder support is critical. Critical because so much of what’s outlined in a sustainability strategy is reliant on the actions of others. The actions of consumers to buy sustainably. The actions of employees to embrace new ways of working. The actions of supply-chain partners to adapt how they run.
Influencing behaviour change is critical, and a lot of what’s required to drive change starts with building belief. Belief in the business’s ambitions for transformation. Belief in its plan to adapt. Belief in the progress being made.
Creating a credible and robust sustainability strategy helps build that belief but so too does compelling engagement. On that, clarifying the ambition, unifying commitments and demonstrating progress are good places to start.
The complex and long-term nature of sustainable transformation can make it difficult for organisational leaders to build belief in their ambition for change. Vague plans to deliver against commitments in sustainability strategies don’t help. Particularly on the emissions front, where many leaders have set long-term net zero goals but few have articulated how they’ll achieve them.
Painting a compelling picture of how leaders envisage organisational transformation shaping up can bring ambitions to life. UK retailer Selfridges did this well recently when it launched its first annual ‘Project Earth’ report. The launch saw the retailer offer specifics about its vision to reinvent retail. A key message was its goal for 45% of transactions to come from circular products and services by 2030. The message made its sustainability vision tangible and became the focus of countless media stories.
The scale and diverse nature of action needed to fuel a sustainable transformation makes it challenging for organisations to communicate a coherent story of change. That’s a problem because businesses need to make it clear how various initiatives interconnect and serve a bigger purpose.
Carrefour’s Act for Food initiative is a good example of a brand that’s created a common thread to engage audiences. The French grocery retailer’s program brought together several global acts to help customers and employees eat better. The initiatives included doubling the number of products in its vegetarian range and guaranteeing fish are responsibly sourced. By uniting a diverse range of concrete acts under a single umbrella, Carrefour found a creative way to rally internal and external stakeholders about its sustainable transformation.
With so many sustainability commitments and pledges, stakeholders are rightly cynical about corporate promises. Ensuring what a business does is authentic and meaningful is important, but so too is reporting on outcomes. To build belief in a sustainability strategy, business leaders must prioritise transparent and regular communication about the progress being made, and where there is more to do.
Officeworks did this well in its FY22 sustainability report. In a section titled ‘Our Progress’, the retailer openly communicated the state of progress against its 2025 sustainability commitments. This included acknowledging whether the business is ‘at the beginning’ or ‘on track’ regarding various people and planet actions. In doing so, Officeworks shows it understands sustainable transformation is a constant work-in-progress.
Ensuring sustainability strategies are credible and creative is quite the challenge. Making the complex simple and engaging generally is. Crack that challenge, however, and sustainability leaders will find themselves well placed to help their organisation build the belief, support and progress that’s needed.
Stu Wragg, Client Partner at Salterbaxter Australia.
Top image credit: iStock.com/Drs Producoes
Companies are announcing bold plans for decarbonisation. Ten-year emissions reduction plans have been developed into abatement curves and waterfall charts, with aspirations transformed into high-level roadmaps and communicated with stakeholders — giving everyone a sense of comfort that there is a clear pathway to action and decarbonisation.
However, the unfortunate reality is that decarbonisation could be happening much faster than this. We frequently hear that annual capital allocation processes favour highly attractive growth projects, which seem to squeeze out and defer decarbonisation projects to next year. At the same time, projects that are approved often become mired in slow-moving approval processes, resulting in limited to no progress on the decarbonisation scorecard.
In our experience, breaking through standard processes to accelerate decarbonisation and capture its vast potential value, takes five results-focused steps.
Abatement curves and waterfalls show the ‘big picture’, but it spans almost a whole decade. A great first step is translating into realistic, yearly improvements, to ensure annual targets collectively deliver more than marketplace commitments. With market expectations likely to increase, organisations should aim for more significant reductions each year in order to meet global climate change objectives.
Incentives for achieving operational excellence, and targets, are a great driver and the same approach can be used to meet decarbonisation objectives.
Embedding targets into executive compensation, at least in the short term, can help gain organisational attention — management will be forced to pursue decarbonisation with a vigour that compares to their focus on immediate objectives and short-term profitability. Of course, this also means that management processes must be established to ensure managers have full visibility into their monthly progress towards corporate decarbonisation targets.
Organisations can fully expect to meet their 2030 targets with net present value (NPV) positive projects. Once identified, these projects should be prioritised within the capital allocation process and become the first projects to get access to capital. Every organisation’s pathway will be different, reflecting their specific priorities. To achieve this, it is important to:
If the equivalent of 20% of your sustaining capital expenditure budget is allocated to decarbonisation projects, for example, there will be a natural bias towards ensuring these projects are completed. Managers are true wizards at ensuring their asset gets all the capital it can, and if this is viewed as being an ‘extra pool’ they will likely be fighting for it.
Some organisations will discount their decarbonisation projects using a ‘green funding rate’, which is often around 6%, rather than the 15% required from growth projects, improving the comparative NPV of decarbonisation projects.
In many jurisdictions, there is a tangible price of carbon. In others, some companies are using a shadow cost with the expectation they will soon face a real price of carbon in their products (and we anticipate this will increase with continuing focus on emissions reduction).
It is critical to deploy appropriate processes for individual capital projects. Some will be of high risk and with high technological uncertainty (for example, hydrogen is showing promise if appropriately targeted, but it is not yet fully tested technology), and should move through traditional project development processes. Meanwhile others, like solar farms, are based on mature technologies which can be implemented with speed. Ensure the right processes are being used at the right time.
Project implementation should be, and should remain, fully visible and collectively reviewed by the senior executive team on an ongoing basis.
When the leadership team has full transparency across critical projects, the full support of the organisation can be ensured, towards accelerating implementation.
Pre-established management processes and cultures in organisations typically bias their primary objectives over all other considerations. However, stakeholder expectations have risen to the point where delivery against decarbonisation targets is now considered table stakes for market support. By restructuring existing systems, organisations can align their processes to deliver real progress towards decarbonisation goals (usually without any adverse impacts on operations).
Driving this change should be a priority for every executive leadership team, in order to meet organisational net zero targets.
*Skipp Williamson has over 30 years’ experience assisting companies to unleash their potential. She has worked in Australasia, Africa, Europe and North and Latin America, spanning mining and most metals and minerals processing. She worked for five years on strategy and performance at McKinsey and then formed Partners in Performance International in 1996. Her work has spanned volume, safety, costs, procurement, logistics, contractor management, maintenance and capital.
Image caption: iStock.com/NiseriN
The Australian Council of Recycling (ACOR) has welcomed the pledge from the Environment Ministers Meeting (EMM) to work with the private sector to design out waste and pollution, keep materials in use and foster strong end markets to achieve a circular economy by 2030.
In this year’s first meeting of the federal, state and territory environment ministers under the stewardship of Minister Plibersek, one of the agreements reached was to work with the private sector to design out waste and pollution, keep materials in use, and foster markets to achieve a circular economy by 2030.
“We need to work collaboratively to tackle the urgent environmental issues we face, that’s why meetings like this are important,” Plibersek said on Twitter shortly after the meeting.
This agreement will ensure that all packaging available in Australia is designed to be recovered, reused, recycled and reprocessed safely in line with circular economy principles. There was also renewed commitment for the recycling of household electronics and clean technologies such as solar panels, and end-of-life tyres will be included on the minister’s product stewardship priority list.
ACOR said it was encouraged to see this commitment to a national alignment between environmental policies and circular economy principles. Pursuing a circular economy by 2030 where resource recovery, remanufacturing and recycling are at the forefront will create jobs, generate economic and social value, and unleash design and manufacturing innovation.
“We welcome the outcomes of the Environment Ministers Meeting, which signal strong support for the resource recovery industry, manufacturers and the private sector by clearly identifying a pathway to a circular economy through product design and demand for recycled content,” said ACOR CEO Suzanne Toumbourou.
“A focus on extended producer responsibilities for electronics and clean technologies will benefit consumers, recyclers and the environment while ensuring that we are on an innovation pathway to meet our circular economy goals.
“Innovation is only possible and sustainable with strong markets for recycled products. If we are serious about supporting better product design and more efficient production processes, we need governments — as Australia’s largest infrastructure client and major procurer of goods — to play a key role in leading market demand for recycled content and providing strong incentives to businesses,” Toumbourou said.
The other two commitments agreed by ministers at the meeting held on Friday, 21 October 2022 included:
The National Waste Policy Action Plan will be expanded over the coming year to strengthen Australia’s efforts towards the 2030 targets.
Image credit: iStock.com/Khanchit Khirisutchalual
One of the largest solar initiatives in Australia’s water industry has been recognised by its energy counterparts, with SA Water’s Zero Cost Energy Future project claiming a top prize at this year’s Australian Institute of Energy (SA branch) Awards.
Winning Energy Project of the Year, the ambitious renewable energy initiative uses more than 366,000 solar photovoltaic panels generating an average of 242 gigawatt hours of energy per annum to significantly reduce the utility’s sizeable operating electricity costs.
Held annually, the state-based awards celebrate the milestones and successes achieved in South Australia’s energy industry each year.
SA Water’s General Manager of Strategy, Engagement and Innovation Nicola Murphy said the award is another accolade for the ambitious project, following recent success at the 2022 Australian Water Awards.
“Having identified our ability to become leaders in proactively managing our own energy requirements in the face of a volatile energy market, our Zero Cost Energy Future initiative has taken significant strides since first commencing construction back in 2019,” Murphy said.
“Harnessing seven key initiatives encompassing solar generation, battery storage and demand scheduling, we will have the solar capacity to meet up to 70% of our annual electricity needs in an average weather and water consumption year, while selling any excess power.
“When all of our 33 solar sites are energised and connected to the national grid, the estimated 89,000 tonnes achieved in emissions reductions every year of operation will be roughly the equivalent of removing more than 32,000 cars off our roads.
“To be recognised by the state’s energy industry as Energy Project of the Year is a feather in the cap for our team and contract partners working to deliver this exciting project for the benefit of our business, our customers and the wider community.
“The entire concept for this project was formed by our own people, demonstrating the skills and knowledge that our water industry here in South Australia has to create change on a large scale.”
Top image caption: Andrew Jackson and Nima Vahidi from SA Water accepting the award for Energy Project of the Year.
Victorian Minister for Energy Lily D’Ambrosio has announced $7.5 million for crucial back-up power systems in 24 towns hit by major storms in 2021 — including batteries and rooftop solar on community buildings.
The energy systems will provide power to community hubs when damage to the network causes a widespread outage, allowing residents to shower, heat food and charge devices.
The government identified 24 towns and will now begin to work with energy providers, local governments and emergency services organisations to deliver the new energy solutions.
Work is also underway to secure communities at risk of outages caused by bushfires, after the 2019–20 fires left areas in East Gippsland disconnected from the state’s grid. Through the Community Microgrids and Sustainable Energy Program, Victoria is funding new energy-resilient infrastructure with AusNet.
The Labor Government is also investing $9.8 million to deploy a mix of solar panels, batteries, heat pumps and generators to the three towns — Mallacoota, Omeo and Corryong.
The microgrids will enable the provision of crucial back-up power in the event of a power outage caused by a bushfire.
In other news for the state, Victoria has released new emissions reduction targets. It has committed to reduce emissions by 75 to 80% (on 2005 levels) by 2035 and net zero by 2045. Its targets also include a renewables target of 95% by 2035.
Image credit: iStock.com/Daniiielc
All-Energy Australia will be hosting a Start-Up Showcase presented by EnergyLab, a climate tech startup accelerator and innovation network that supports talented founders and connects them to mentors, advisors, partners, peers and investors.
Taking place on Thursday, 27 October, the showcase will give visitors the chance to hear from innovative startups about their journey. It will include clean tech startups such as Open Solar, Roev, UPowr, Ecojoule, Economical Energy, Equoia, Allegro Energy and more.
There will be a particular focus on lithium batteries with a panel covering ‘Start-Ups & Australia’s Generational Opportunity in the Lithium Battery Value Chain’ and a keynote focusing on ‘Maximising Our Lithium Battery Value Chain Resources.’ The focus on innovation in the battery area follows the launch of the ‘Supercharge Initiative’, a partnership between New Energy Nexus and EnergyLab, which is calling for more Australian startups to supercharge battery innovation.
Co-located with Waste Expo, All-Energy Australia is being held at the MCEC in Melbourne from 26–27 October. To register for the event, visit www.all-energy.com.au.
Image credit: iStock.com/Petmal
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