New research shows tons of carbon emissions can be reduced with 3D printing

The report emphasises the environmental benefits of using additive manufacturing (AM) over traditional manufacturing methods, highlighting different aspects where AM has strong CO2 emissions saving potential as in complex geometries parts and spare parts that be produced on-demand.

As an example, the report illustrates how the avoidance of the production and disposal of a single spare part over a ten-year period can lead to a significant reduction of 3 tons of CO2 emissions – equivalent to the emissions produced by 18,000 kilometres travelled in a diesel automobile, or 216 train trips between Paris and Amsterdam.

These findings demonstrate the potential for AM to make a significant impact on a company's carbon footprint.

Omer Blaier, CASTOR’s Co-Founder and CEO: “Business leaders are under increasing pressure to reduce carbon emissions – from stakeholders, customers, and from regulatory bodies. Companies must explore new innovative manufacturing processes if they are to become more environmentally friendly. We believe that the contribution of Additive Manufacturing to sustainability is growing, and we are committed to developing methods to reflect its benefits.”

CASTOR’s software enables manufacturers to automatically analyse their parts and determine whether production with AM makes sense, from a technical, economical, and now also sustainable point of view.

The research is based on CASTOR’s latest addition to the software, a calculator that reveals the amount of CO2 emissions that can potentially be saved by using Additive Manufacturing instead of Traditional Manufacturing.

As stated in the report, CASTOR’s Carbon Emissions calculator is derived by analysing parts through their various stages of its lifecycle. The calculator’s considerations are aggregated from factors such as:

• Material production
• Product manufacturing
• Product use
• Transportation
• End of life of a part

The report is based on the data of more than 50,000 assemblies and parts that have been uploaded to CASTOR’s software over the past three years, the company gathered all the interesting trends that were identified and created a report that summarises insights into AM as a sustainable way of production.

This new innovation provides companies with valuable information and transparent sustainability reporting on their parts’ CO2 emission, allowing them todrive more informed and sustainable decisions across the organisation, and it is the source of knowledge for the informative and revealing data in this report.

You can find the report for free download in this link.