Businesses across all industries are increasingly recognizing the need to work together to address issues such as global warming and climate change, the scarcity of raw materials, and the importance of good working conditions. As a member of the Hosokawa Group, we are actively focusing on sustainability and circularity in multiple ways: both within our own operational processes at our facilities, and – through our ongoing R&D work – for our existing and future customers.

For instance, as outlined below, we contribute to reducing energy consumption and the carbon footprint, improving productivity, recycling raw materials and enabling waste streams to be reused.

At our own facilities

At Hosokawa Micron, we are involved in numerous initiatives related to sustainability and circularity, including:

• Reducing our own energy consumption by installing solutions such as LED lighting and a central pressurized air system.
• Reducing our carbon footprint, such as by modernizing the CNC machine park, improving our internal logistics and redesigning our supply chain network.
• Optimizing our Environmental Management System.

The topics of sustainability and circularity are a key consideration during our ongoing R&D work. We are continuously investing in the development of equipment, production processes and integral solutions that help our customers to achieve their own corporate sustainable responsibility (CSR) objectives. Examples of recent innovations include:

• The use of a Hosokawa continuous drying system being more energy-efficient than spray drying.
• Continuous innovation of our drying systems to reduce the amount of energy lost or to enable the excess heat to be recovered and reused.
• Further increasing the mixing line capacity, such as by optimizing the product flow and line cycle times.
• Use of IoT technology to tap into the sustainability benefits of 'smart' control. Additionally, this enables us to offer remote service, which not only saves time and money but also reduces the carbon footprint by eliminating much of the travel involved in routine maintenance and repairs.

Sector-specific solutions

We serve customers in many different sectors, each with their unique needs. Here are some examples of how we support sustainability and circularity in various industries:

• Food waste streams
  Our energy-efficient dryers can be used to valorize residual streams in the food industry, such as to recover valuable nutrients or other high-quality raw materials from residual products in the processing of meat, fish, dairy products, fruit or vegetables, and side streams from bakeries, breweries or biorefining plants. » Read more

• Carbon black
  The Hosokawa Group has developed a process for the sustainable recovery of Carbon Black from used car tyres after pyrolysis. This can then be recycled and used in the production of new tyres. » Read more

• Batteries
  With technologies for use in several steps of the production process, the Hosokawa Group is helping rechargable battery manufacturers to create smaller and more compact batteries with an increased energy density, a longer-lasting charge and a longer useful life of the battery overall. All of this helps to reduce their carbon footprint while also saving costs. » Read more

Tailor-made approach for customers

Our 'total solution' approach is a key pillar of our mindset within the Hosokawa Group. We work closely with every customer to explore how we can help them to improve the sustainability and circularity of their existing – and planned – processes. Many of our machines have a technical useful life of more than 30 years, so in some cases it can make sense to retrofit the customer's existing equipment with a newer component (e.g. a new IE3-class electric motor) to achieve 'quick wins' in terms of energy savings and efficiency.

In all cases, we take a holistic view of the steps in our customers' current and planned production processes to ensure that they are optimally aligned from the perspective of productivity, sustainability, return on investment (ROI) and total cost of ownership (TCO).