By Paul Benny
(This blog is a repost of LinkedIn article published on 7/20/2022)
Because we’re on a one-way street and we’re rocketing towards a dead end.
Consumers, the federal government, watchdog groups, and leaders in (nearly) every industry — are talking about being eco-friendly, improving sustainability practices, and green manufacturing.
If manufacturers fail to reduce carbon emissions by adopting eco-friendly manufacturing practices, the costs — for businesses, consumers, and the world — will be steep.
It’s time to stop talking about sustainable manufacturing and start acting.
Despite economic ups and downs and supply chain woes, manufacturing remains one of the largest sectors of the American economy. Let’s face it, climate change is real and it’s having a very real impact on manufacturing.
Thankfully, over the past couple of decades, huge strides have been made in the manufacturing and metal forming arena. New processes and technologies can enable manufacturers to do what’s right for the climate AND for their bottom line, their products, their customers, and the American economy.
The cost of doing nothing is steep.
If we fail to act, the consequences are dire.
The World Economic Forum recently published research that predicts that “The largest impact of climate change is that it could wipe up to 18% of GDP off the worldwide economy by 2050 if global temperatures rise by 3.2°C” and “The global economy could lose 10% of its total economic value by 2050 due to climate change.”
Supply chain disruptions
We’re already experiencing this! And although Covid is the convenient culprit, climate change is playing a huge role. I’m not going out on a limb when I say that the supply chain was delicately hinged and ready to break before the pandemic upended our way of life.
It’s time to accept this state of supply chain affairs as the new normal and DO something about it. Like making better use of our resources by using less of them and making the most of them.
Rising costs
The literal cost of doing nothing is going up, too. As goods become harder and harder to come by (or, in some cases, impossible to come by), demand is pushing the price of materials to new heights.
Rising coping costs
The Union of Concerned Scientists notes that in addition to mass migration, and security threats, climate change is also to blame for rising “coping costs” — such as gasoline, natural gas, electricity, and water.
Property damage and infrastructure failure
It’s getting hotter here. We’re sweating in Tennessee, London’s sweltering, Europe’s on fire, exceptional droughts are killing off crops, and glaciers are melting. It’s a cycle and we’re watching sea levels rise and experiencing more and more massive flooding, mudslides, hurricanes, heatwaves, droughts, and devastating wildfires. In addition to the human cost, these catastrophic events require time-consuming and costly repair of essential infrastructures such as manufacturing facilities, roads, bridges, railroads, airport runways, power lines, dams, levees, seawalls, communities, and more.
Lost productivity
The Union also notes that “Disruptions in daily life related to climate change can mean lost work and school days and harm trade, transportation, agriculture, fisheries, energy production, and tourism. Severe rainfall events and snowstorms can delay planting and harvesting, cause power outages, snarl traffic, delay air travel, and otherwise make it difficult for people to go about their daily business. Climate-related health risks also reduce productivity, such as when extreme heat curtails construction, or when more potent allergies and more air pollution lead to lost work and school days.”
Innovation backslide
We’re going backwards. GM, Volkswagen, and a number of other manufacturers have limited the availability of safety features like driver assistance technology. Some manufacturers have even begun selling incomplete vehicles with a number of missing features that would've been standard equipment just a couple of years ago!
Yes, we’ve all heard about the chip shortage and we’ve seen the empty car lots. If nothing else, this particular shortage is an excellent argument for bringing manufacturing back to the United States. Although a recession could ease the pain of the chip shortage, our country simply cannot continue to rely entirely on foreign countries for critical goods. And we absolutely should be more concerned about our country’s ability to compete and innovate on the global market.
It’s time for radical change. Let’s start a manufacturing revolution.
Simply put: It’s past time for manufacturers to embrace eco-friendly manufacturing and adopt sustainability-focused processes. Change is scary. But not doing anything is even more terrifying.
How can FluidForming help?
Let’s start with a slow pitch down the middle: We can help manufacturers improve their energy, sustainability, and governance (ESG) scores. Achieving ESG goals are a big deal for publicly traded companies and they’re increasingly important for smaller businesses as well.
But FluidForming and the FluidForming Americas team can do more than that.
New, eco-friendly manufacturing processes — like FluidForming — can help companies achieve ESG goals and help ensure a thriving global economy for today . . . and tomorrow by:
- Reducing the use of natural resources.
- Reducing energy consumption.
- Lowering carbon emissions.
- Replacing harmful plastics with long-lasting, recyclable metals.
- Maximizing the use of raw materials.
- Relying on technology advancements that optimize efficiency, resiliency, and sustainability across the full manufacturing life cycle.
- Using Finite Element Analysis to optimize product design and function.
- Building a strong foundation for a global circular economy.
FluidForming is a cold-forming hydroforming process that helps make eco-friendly manufacturing possible for product developers, innovators, and manufacturers across the country. is an inherently green manufacturing process that makes sense for businesses … and the environment.
To learn more about FluidForming, FluidForming Americas’ services, or to purchase a FormBalancer hydroforming metal press for your facility, contact FluidForming Americas at 1-800-497-3545 or email us at info@ffamericas.com.
FluidForming Americas, Inc. is a member of the Precision Metal Forming Association and is AS9100 Rev D, ISO 9001:2015 certified.
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