Sustainability 1

Autonomous machines may not feel like an obvious driver of sustainability, but as our roundtable of experts from Cummins, Trimble, and Volvo explains, non-operated technology is helping leading contractors around the world reduce their carbon footprints and improve their on-site safety records. It’s a win-win situation … and then, of course, there’s the thorny question of powertrain suitability.

Sharing data and working closely together with customers will push forward the construction industry’s rate of change in terms of carbon reduction, optimised equipment fleets, improved utilisation rates, and better-educated operators. Get your on-site monitoring right and new technology solutions are going to dramatically reduce emissions and a far healthier ecosystem say our roundtable experts.

Our three roundtable experts all emphasise that sustainable powertrain solutions are very much a case of “horses for courses.” There is no clear winner yet. Different outcomes are going to be needed for different parts of the world, or for different applications. Diesel has “spoiled us” they say. In the future, choosing the best sustainable powertrain is going to be a far more complex decision.

Cummins sees a sustainable future that is “fuel agnostic,” because different circumstances will require different solutions to achieve the best outcomes. Trimble agrees, warning the construction sector “not to put all of its eggs in one basket.” For Volvo, the future is electric. The company is committed to making 35% of its fleet electric by 2030. Innovation, collaboration, and efficiency are where it’s at.

For Cummins, sustainability is all about “the most efficient transfer of energy into power,” a goal that the US engine giant has spent its entire history working towards. Volvo wants to help “build a world we all want to live in,” and Trimble likes to think about “transforming the way the world works.” It all sounds very aspirational but, with sustainable technology taking centre stage, it’s happening now.

Sustainability is a huge topic across the construction and quarrying industry – not just in terms of what can be achieved tomorrow via carbon-free hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen internal combustion engines of machine fleets, but today, through the use of smart technology to make jobsites more efficient and sustainable by getting work done right first time, every time