Few would disagree. America — and the world — are going green. Whether through energy efficiency, environmental measures, safety and health practices, or all of the above, consumers and manufacturers alike are striving to earn the label “green.”

Thirty-plus years ago, similar efforts were underway. Oil shortages, Earth Day, recycling, energy management systems, all surged to the fore — then faded. Now they’re back. Technological advances have made possible and desirable the monitoring and measuring, the automation and controls, that are critical to becoming and remaining energy efficient and environmentally friendly. Beyond that, however, a more serious and sustainable atmosphere pervades the 2008 movement to “go green”: consumer pressure, growing global demand for finite resources and knowledge advances are driving manufacturers to develop more efficient products and processes, and implement more responsible ways of operating.

“This time, I think we have a perfect convergence of concerns about climate change and high energy prices to drive an interest in sustainability,” says John White, energy management and environmental solutions manager for Eaton Corp. Most manufacturers agree.

“Early adopters who address green initiatives and become more socially responsible will find themselves at a competitive advantage,” says Rod Ellsworth, vice president of business solutions consulting and enterprise asset management at Infor. “Products will be better received and their companies will be more financially viable and flexible.” Info’s enterprise software supports various manufacturers’ green initiatives.

Today’s moves to become more energy efficient and environmentally conscious differ from previous efforts largely because of the drivers that are fueling it. Brandon Henning, global industry manager, food and beverage, GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, cites three primary reasons the current green movement will hold and grow. First, he says, “major retailers are demanding that the manufacturers they buy from be more green…and that they prove it. Companies must be green if they are going to continue to sell to large retailers, and retailers are not flexible about compliance. Merchants such as Wal-Mart audit how much energy, water, and other resources a supplier uses and vendors need to show reductions year after year.”

Second, sustainability and energy efficiency make good business sense, because they drive costs out of the manufacturing process. “As plants evaluate ways to operate more effectively, they also are getting smarter about it. If done correctly, the benefits of efficiency efforts are greater than the costs,” says Henning. “Investments in controls, automation equipment, production management systems, like GE Fanuc Plant Applications and ERP systems, come together to improve overall effectiveness.”

Third, resources are becoming scarce. “Especially in industries such as food and beverage, changing weather patterns and climates affect the availability of raw materials,” says Henning. “Companies are looking at their long-term impact on the environment and their ability to acquire the raw materials they need.”

Green initiatives and sustainability pervade the workings of many major manufacturers’ operations today. If yours is not among them, there are good reasons why it is time to start moving in that direction.

Most manufacturers approach the move to green from two angles: by implementing measures within their organizations, and by introducing environmentally friendly measures into their products for outreach to customers. Many have launched specific green initiatives and other programs. Monitoring and reporting functions are integral to nearly every effort, and harnessing the advantages of advanced automation and controls technology and software is common. While by no means comprehensive, here is look at a few such programs from automation and controls vendors who are themselves manufacturers (see also the list on page 44).

Among manufacturers’ green initiatives is one from Freescale, maker of custom chip sets and embedded control components. Freescale’s program includes steps to conserve resources in its own operation and to measure that it has had an impact on the industries it deals with. “In 2001,” says Paul Ballentine, company director of wireless strategy and champion of its sustainability efforts, “we set baseline guidelines for energy and resource use and goals for reducing that use. We established five measurable metrics: non-hazardous waste generation; hazardous waste generation; greenhouse gas emissions; energy consumption; and water consumption. Every facility manager worldwide is responsible for measuring and tracking these factors and reporting levels to a central department.”

In addition to reducing the amount of energy it consumes in making its products, the company has also cut the amount of energy used by its products. Says Ballentine, “We are concentrating on making Internet controllers that are more energy efficient and lower in power consumption, which benefits the customer. This equipment generates a lot of heat. Electricity is needed to run the chip and to cool the room. More efficient chips help out in both ways.”

Green efforts at Siemens Energy & Automation have taken the form of applying controls for efficiency in industry overall, and in the alternative fuels industry in particular. The company has worked with biofuels operations for a long time, with a number of installations using its automation and controls systems to help ensure quality and safety. Says Don Mack, the company’s PAS biofuels initiative lead, “We need to be better caretakers than we have been in the past. The energy bill signed recently increased mandates for ethanol and biodiesel production, and required vehicles increase fuel economy and reduce emissions. Using alternative fuels can help lower emissions and have a positive effect on the environment.”

The formalized green program launched by Opto 22 about two years ago focuses on internal conservation and awareness, as well on interaction with its customers. “First and foremost in any green effort,” suggests Benson Hougland, Opto 22 vice president, “should be self-examination. We looked at what we could do on the manufacturing floor. We increased our recycling efforts and also changed some of our processes to be more efficient.” The company’s efforts seek to leverage its own technology. “We connected systems using our own SNAP PACs,” explains Hougland, “giving us ready made monitoring and control.”

Rockwell Automation finds the term “green” too limiting, labeling its move to greater efficiency as “sustainable production.” John Nesi, vice president of market development at Rockwell Automation, says sustainable production is a broader social responsibility issue that “involves aspects of climate change, safety, energy efficiency, and environmental friendliness, and is the only long-term solution to overcoming rising energy, raw material, workers compensation, lost worker productivity, and product liability costs. Sustainable production also requires both information and control technologies. For example, a plant needs to be able to equip a smokestack to monitor it effectively and determine whether or not it’s burning cleanly. This type of regulation can now be done with expert system software tools and predictive modeling and control techniques.”

The desire to be green is spawning new and modified products. Says Eaton’s White: “We make a UPS for use in large data centers that uses less power than a traditional UPS to help the customer manage energy more efficiently, and requires 80% less energy to produce than it did just a few years ago. In another example, our medium-voltage switchgear does not use SF 6 (sulfur hexafluoride), a potent greenhouse gas with a global warming impact 23,900 times greater than CO2.”

Green practices have led Schneider Electric to deploy more integrated solutions to optimize capital and operating expenditures. Says Cassie Quaintance, the company’s energy market segment manager, “The plant infrastructure and factory floor used to be independent organizations. Now both share common energy efficiency goals. By integrating our energy management system, manufacturing execution, and batch management software — three systems that, in recent years, would have been considered distinct and managed by separate organizations — and by allowing the exchange of data and parameters, we enable organizations to drive towards their overall energy efficiency goals. By integrating these systems, and by adding features and functionality to existing solutions, we are bringing new efficiencies to the plant infrastructure and the factory floor.”

Honeywell is heavily involved in green initiatives, both internally and in its outreach to customers. More than half of its solutions are aimed at lowering production costs or reducing energy consumption. “We’re helping people identify energy efficiency opportunities; make a business case for those projects to get approval; and apply the technology, implement the solutions, and evaluate the results,” says Brendan Sheehan, senior marketing manager, process industries, Honeywell Process Solutions. Among recent efforts was the installation of a DCS and advanced control system in a large pulp-and-paper mill that led to a savings of about 2% in energy consumption or about $1 million annually. “Overall, the company was able to consume fewer resources per ton of paper produced — a compelling business case for the implementation of efficiency solutions,” says Sheehan.

Justifying those environmental and energy conservation projects admittedly can be an issue. “Sometimes there are good business reasons for these changes,” says Freescale’s Ballentine. “Installing a better boiler or more efficient equipment generally has a solid financial payback. Other times, a measure is just the right thing to do. Any for-profit corporation needs to balance those measures. There are always trade-offs.”

But it is a fallacy that green efforts will add to the cost of manufacturing, stresses Infor’s Ellsworth. “Such measures are more likely to reduce the costs of making these products. Energy is probably the single largest O&M [operations and maintenance] expense in the manufacture of a product. If a company can operate and maintain its assets at less energy cost and consumption than previously, they not only conserve energy, they generate fewer emissions and reduce their carbon footprint per product produced as well.” Ellsworth’s company now factors energy consumption and efficiency into all the ongoing O&M of an asset to help set standards for quality, availability, and capacity at the least energy cost.

By all appearances, green is going global, with virtually no country or culture not interested in sustainability. Eaton’s White points out, “We’re getting inquiries from our Middle East counterparts about green buildings. Developing cities like Dubai and Abu Dhabi are committing to use LEED practices.” (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, is an environmental rating system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council.)

Admittedly, however, the focus and extent of the interest in energy efficiency and reduced greenhouse gas emissions varies from region to region around the world.

The Chinese government has stated that it aims to quadruple GDP by 2020, while only doubling energy use for the same period. This increase in energy efficiency will be challenging, points out Honeywell’s Sheehan. “It may be a competing requirement with increasing production that has seen energy in China increasing faster than GDP in recent years,” he explains. “China has several key energy saving processes outlined in its 2004 plan. These include coal-fired industrial boiler projects, cogeneration projects, alternative fuel vehicles and high efficiency motors, energy efficient lighting, and others.”

According to Rockwell’s Nesi, U.S.-based global companies are among the first to be proactive. “Many are looking at their global carbon footprints and ways to apply reduction measures across their facilities worldwide. Europe is already conscientious about these issues and limits industrial emissions. However, observes Honeywell’s Sheehan, “Europe tends to be more focused on reducing emissions because there is a tax associated with exceeding certain limits.”

European-based Schneider submits sustainability reports to the European Union each year. As a result, it has benchmarked all energy and water use at all facilities globally since 2004. “We’re able to benchmark against our energy use and track our progress in reducing our impact on the environment,” says Quaintance. “One thing I like about tracking greenhouse gas emissions or measuring a carbon footprint is that it makes a company’s environmental impact very clear. It’s not greenwashing [making a green statement but having nothing with which to back it up].”

Most everyone agrees more U.S. legislation is likely over time. “Consumers expect and demand certain quality levels be met, says GE Fanuc’s Mike Yost, product marketing manager for production management software. “They will drive retailers’ actions, which in turn will affect the shop floor and influence legislation. When there is need in the consumer ranks, there is the potential for government involvement.”

In the opinion of Rockwell Automation’s Nesi, many manufacturers are looking for standards to which they might comply and/or benchmarks against which to measure their operations. “The processes manufacturers want to mitigate require measurement and recording. Many of these levels are not yet mandated by law, but manufacturers see it coming. To get ahead in a regulatory environment, they are striving to establish their own standards now.”

Says Memphis Biofuels’ Ken Arnold, “I don’t see oil prices retreating, and the impetus on Capitol Hill is sufficient to make sure incentives and mandates stay in place to keep the biofuels industry moving forward.”

Until utilities can provide other types of fuels, says Infor’s Ellsworth — and that will take a significant amount of time — manufacturers will have to use carbon- or fossil-based fuels and conserve through demand-side programs that help users reduce consumption sufficiently to keep carbon emissions at least holding steady. He acknowledges that efforts must continue in the development of such alternative energy sources as wind farms, fuel cells, and perhaps even nuclear, as well.

Companies agree that green is not solely a compliance or corporate responsibility issue; it’s good business. It’s more profitable business. Energy prices are only a small part of the equation, according to Rockwell Automation’s Nesi.

“Companies that can demonstrate sustainable production stand to gain a competitive advantage long term,” says Nesi. “Investors are seeking out companies that are socially responsible, while at the same time investment groups are seeking to identify companies with strong sustainability practices as preferred investment options. Someday, oil prices may drop, but by then a whole group of new alternative energy development projects will have sprung up. The U.S. government is funding ethanol, hydrogen, and fuel cell development projects, and that investment is not likely to stop.”

Many resources exist for creating your own green initiatives and programs. A list, along with links to Websites for more information, is available online.