Make a world of difference

There are significant additional benefits for businesses that adopt a greener approach. Companies that prove to be more sustainable will gain a competitive advantage, as customers increasingly demand a sustainable approach. Cost savings can be made when businesses use energy more efficiently, reduce waste and take advantage of government green schemes. A climate-friendly attitude also improves the morale of a businesses’ workforce, which in turn increases productivity and makes it a more attractive workplace for potential new employees.

At Bosch Rexroth, we’ve been on our journey toward greater sustainability for several years. We launched our GoGreen initiative more than ten years ago. Our dedicated team of experts have been systematically identifying how we can reduce energy usage across our plants. Between 2008 and 2021, we reduced our energy intensity – in other words, the energy consumed in relation to the components and solutions produced – by 39 percent, and our CO₂ intensity by 75 percent. Then in 2020, all Bosch Rexroth sites – and the entire Bosch Group – achieved the important goal of becoming climate-neutral. In short, we’ve done this by:

• Rigorously increasing energy efficiency in production, in buildings and the company vehicle fleet, and by using our own solutions and those from other Bosch business divisions.
• Continually reducing our consumption of resources.
• Purchasing green electricity and encouraging the development of clean, renewable energy sources.
• Compensating for remaining emissions through carbon offsetting certificates.

We want your business to benefit from our experience, so our GoGreen team is sharing the knowledge we’ve gained from making our own plants climate-neutral. By offering consultancy services and practical advice, you too can get greener and reduce costs by becoming more energy efficient.

The experience we’ve gained while upgrading our own plants has also helped to inform our thinking when developing new products and solutions. Like you, we want to be more climate-friendly, but we also have to consider the challenges of modern-day manufacturing, such as how to be smarter, faster, more productive and more flexible.

That’s where our ‘More and Less' portfolio comes in. On the one hand, it aims to meet your business needs by giving you tangible benefits – more profitability, more productivity, more flexibility, to name but a few. On the other hand, it reduces your environmental impact. Our development engineers assess the effects of products on the environment when they’re designing them, then look at how they can be improved.

Let’s look at a few examples. In the world of factory automation, our ctrlX DRIVE is the world’s most compact modular drive system. It gives you greater throughput and productivity, thanks to leaner automation. Yet it requires 50 percent less space, has up to 90 percent less cabling and significantly reduces energy consumption. For industrial hydraulics, the focus is on less energy consumption, less fluid and less material. For instance, CytroBox, our latest-generation hydraulic power unit, is more efficient because of its needs-based generation of volume flow and pressure, yet it can lower energy consumption by up to 80 percent and lower oil volume by up to 75 percent.

In the field of mobile machines, electrification is proving to be transformational. Our new eLION portfolio for the electrification and replacement of combustion engines for locally emission-free solutions is enhancing efficiency and machine performance, while reducing CO₂ emissions. Rexroth Service can provide remote diagnosis, which leads to higher availability of your machines and less downtime, yet with fewer business trips. We can also retrofit your existing machines to give you greater productivity, higher return on investment and more flexibility, while reducing energy and resources.

Through its technologies, the mechanical engineering sector influences the greenhouse gas emissions of virtually all industries – from the energy sector or manufacturing and processing industry to construction and agriculture and even the waste disposal and recycling sector. A recent study carried out by the Boston Consulting Group and the VDMA outlines the important role that machinery and equipment manufacturers have to play in the battle against climate change. It estimates that if machinery manufacturers offer green technologies to their industrial customers and drive the transition, the 35 gigatons of CO₂ emissions that industry generates could be reduced by up to 86 percent. Studies such as this only stand to reinforce our belief that we at Bosch Rexroth must continue to drive forward our strategy for sustainability, both within our own business and in the solutions that we create for you.