Sustainable manufacturing: Contagem Mission to Zero™ site
Web Story
7min
2024-12-02
The challenge facing ABB’s Belo Horizonte site in Contagem, south-east Brazil, was how to transform a 50-year-old factory into a beacon for sustainability. This is how the workforce set about making it run leaner and cleaner.
ABB’s Belo Horizonte site in Contagem, south-east Brazil
For the past five years, ABB has been on a journey to achieving net zero emissions by 2050, driven by its own Mission to Zero™ program.
Mission to Zero™ is designed to “solve sustainability from the inside out”, by bringing together technologies using digital solutions and renewable energy, to increase efficiency and reduce emissions.
The scalable blueprint to help industries run leaner and cleaner has been rolled out across 20 ABB facilities since 2019, and the 8,000m2 Belo plant in Contagem, southeast Brazil, was one of six ABB sites to be recognized for its sustainability achievements during 2024.
Collectively, they support ABB’s commitment to reduce Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions by 100% by 2050 (compared to 2019).
Energy efficiency from the inside-out
As with sister ABB Mission to Zero™ sites, Belo, which makes poles for use in NEMA residential circuit breakers, had to develop a roadmap to net zero operations, then apply ABB and third-party solutions to enable greater electrification, efficiency and use of renewable energy.
Measures adopted to accelerate energy efficiency include the installation of:
- New energy frequency inverters
- Solar panels
- Solar water heaters
- LED lamps and skylights
- ABB Ability™ smart energy management
Together, these resulted in annual energy savings of 530MWh and a reduction of 160 tons of CO2e emissions*. More simply, each circuit-breaker is now manufactured with one-third less energy than previously used.
*Compared to 2021 baseline
Inside ABB’s Belo site, where 42,000 circuit-breaker poles are made daily
A “game-changer” for energy management
For operations manager Roni Silva, who has overseen the Mission to Zero™ project, the integration of ABB Ability™ Energy Manager to control and optimize energy consumption was “a game-changer”.
We now monitor all our electrical consumers across our facility. We compare energy consumption versus our production to ensure equipment is not running unnecessarily. The EMS also provides insights that help us identify new energy improvement opportunities.
Roni Silva, operations manager of the Belo Horizonte site
Roni Silva, operations manager of the Belo Horizonte site
The latest savings build on a CO2e emissions reduction of more than 128 tons in 2023, from green energy purchases. A further 34 tons were saved following the installation of solar panels, upgraded heating, ventilation and air-conditioning and enhanced frequency inverters in production lines.
The solar panels are estimated to contribute 220 MWh of site-generated renewable energy per year.
None of these savings, however, would have been possible without the commitment of Belo’s workforce.
Without employee support, the goal of net zero would be unattainable. Our initial challenge was getting everyone onboard. It meant changing our traditional ways of operating. We ran training sessions and made weekly audits to show the impact of simple actions like turning off idle machines. We focused on continuous training and sharing information to build a strong culture of environmental care. This helped maintain high levels of engagement and ensured everyone understood their role in achieving our sustainability goals.
Roni Silva
Some of the Belo Horizonte workforce
The ABB Mission to Zero approach at Belo is another example of our aim to enable a lower-carbon society and of our commitment to accelerate the transition to more sustainable manufacturing. Significant reductions in energy consumption and CO2e emissions were achieved within a year of implementing changes and the highly motivated Belo team went beyond efficient energy management to ensure the site delivers zero production waste to landfill.
Mike Mustapha, President of ABB Electrification’s Smart Buildings division
ABB’s Belo workforce has targeted further energy savings in 2024 by adding more solar panels to meet 30 percent of the site’s energy demand as well as installing inverters for compressor and pump machines and replacing existing forklift vehicles with electric ones.
Discover the top five ways to make your operations more sustainable, with this guide.