Towards a more circular production in Scania Oskarshamn
22 APRIL 2022
Great achievements towards a more circular production are made at Scania’s cab factory In Oskarshamn, Sweden, since 2019. The production is fossil free since 2020, more material is recycled, and the energy consumption has decreased with several thousand MWh.
Engaged employees equipped with ‘green glasses’ have focused on sustainability improvements in many areas – all big and small contributions for Scania to meet the goal for Scopes 1 and 2 of the science-based targets (SBT) – to decrease CO2 emissions with at least 50 % between 2015 and 2025 within Scania’s operations and supply chain.
Green mindset
Proud head of this work in Oskarshamn is Sustainability Manager Pernilla Zackrisson, who introduced the Green Accelerator method to visualise everything that goes into different processes, and everything that comes out:
“The mindset is simple. It should feel natural to work daily with green improvements. Nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something.”
The Green Accelerator matrix.
Large factory
Scania’s cab factory in Oskarshamn supplies the entire European production with customer specific truck cabs, all the way from steel coils to the full range of premium cabs. Deliveries are made several times a day to the final assembly lines in Södertälje, Zwolle and Angers.
The employees at Scania Oskarshamn are proud to be in the industry forefront in cab production but also regarding energy and waste reduction.
“The most important aspects of our sustainability work have been the initiatives on all levels, in order to obtain a more circular operation overall,” says Zackrisson.
Measurable results
Targeted improvement work has generated results, and to measure improvements new key performance indicators (KPIs) have been added. One example refers to the amount of water used per cab which have been reduced to 0.8 m3, mainly through the recycling of process water. The amount of wastewater sent to destruction has been considerably diminished, which also reduces costs.
In the waste sector, we have the last years worked hard to reduce the use of soft plastic packaging throughout the chain, from supplier to factory, with a very good outcome.
“The greatest energy savings have been made in the press shop and in the painting process,” Zackrisson explains. “With a powerful heating pump, we can recycle excess heat from the presses. In the paint shop we are now recycling air in the process. These two activities alone have brought down our annual energy consumption with almost 7.000 MWh, which is fantastic!”
Fossil free is key
The production is still dependant on fuel, to heat ovens and for transports. But in the last two years only renewable fuels are in use. The RME fuel for heating is based on locally sourced rape seed oil, and only hydrated vegetable oil (HVO) is used to run transport vehicles. This has brought the CO2 emissions down with 12 percent of Scania’s global production and logistics operations.
Public recognition
“We received the ‘Sunflower award’ last year, from our county governor’s ‘Climate commission’. At Scania we consider improvement work as normal, but it is also nice to be recognised by the surrounding society for our sustainability and circularity work.”
Digitalisation helps
Another interesting initiative on the improvement roadmap for the cab assembly suggests full digitalisation of all orders. This alone would omit 27 tonnes of paper orders yearly.
Other important projects on the list have focused on reducing energy within lighting and ventilation of the premises, placing more recycling bins closer to line, and to make better use of production staff’s workwear, and the process of cleaning them.
“Next step for us is to improve our work with further circularity. We have just initiated a collaboration with Scania Vehicle Recycling in Belgium, for exchange of material.”
