Reducing CO2 emissions

Hitachi Construction Machinery Group is promoting initiatives for both mitigation and adaptation to climate change by reducing the CO2 that causes global warming. We are working on reductions across the entire product life cycle as initiatives in mitigating the effects of climate change. Our “Environmantal Strategy” reflects the initiatives we take in adapting to climate change.

To achieve “2030 Long-Term Environmental Targets”, we are promoting energy saving activities such as introduction of solar power generation and investment for energy efficient facilities. Moreover, to further encourage investments in energy saving facilities, we are implementing an internal carbon pricing framework from FY 2019 to consider carbon prices when making investment decisions.

As an official member of the Japan Construction Equipment Manufacturers Association (CEMA), Hitachi Construction Machinery agrees with the “Low-Carbon Society Action Plan” for the construction machinery industry proposed by the CEMA. In order to achieve it, we take part in the Energy-saving Technology Sub-committee and the Manufacturing Energy-saving Measures Sub-committee in the Engineering Manufacturing Committee, propose measures and hold exchanges of opinions regarding climate change. We work on climate change measures in line with the policy of “Low-Carbon Society Action Plan” by the CEMA.

Visualization

In order to carry out continuous improvement in environmental performance, Hitachi Construction Machinery Group constructed its own aggregation system which visualizes our companies’ environmental footprint. Since 2014, four environmental impacts ((1) energy and CO2, (2) waste, (3) water, and (4) volatile organic compounds (VOC)) have been managed monthly, switching from management in three-month cycles. This has made it possible to build a PDCA cycle corresponding to monthly performance variations and has been hugely successful in improving performance.
In the five plants in Ibaraki Prefecture, we have introduced the integrated energy & equipment management service “EMilia*1” utilizing advanced IoT technology from Hitachi, Ltd. to engage in initiatives such as power saving in production facilities and saving electricity in offices to lower peak electricity usage and reduce standby power consumption based on visualized data of power consumption and standby power usage. Such efforts received recognition in the form of the FY2018 “Prize of the Chairman of ECCJ” awarded by The Energy Conservation Center, Japan.

Since April 2021, we have been using “Hitachi Construction Machinery Energy Control System” to continuously reduce energy consumption at production bases.

∗1: Hitachi, Ltd.’s energy data monitoring system. It enables real-time electricity monitoring of each facility. It can monitor and visually display data by connecting to Hitachi Construction Machinery facilities.