Since 1 January 2023, Römheld & Moelle has been running on renewable electricity

At the end of last year, we started showing the CO₂ footprint of our castings in all offer documents and quotations. It’s a strong incentive to keep reducing the carbon emissions of our products. And it works.

Since January, the CO₂ emissions of our castings are in freefall. Thanks to a complete switch to electricity from renewable sources, we’ve eliminated a major part of our footprint in one fell swoop.

Is this really that easy?

Yes. But only due to years of groundwork. We’ve been able to shift our carbon footprint so significantly ‘simply’ by changing our energy mix, because we made the switch to electric melting through induction early on. The following graph illustrates this powerfully:



Back then, the move to induction was a huge investment that is now proving to have been a game-changing decision. It means we now control all the levers to influence the sustainability of our production – quickly and directly.

Show me your levers!

Just to illustrate what that means, this is the composition of the carbon footprint of one ton of good casting output at Römheld & Moelle before the switch to renewable electricity:



Electricity made the biggest contribution to our emissions footprint (electricity-related CO₂ emissions are based on the energy mix in Germany). The switch to green energy eliminates it entirely. What’s left is a rejigged pie chart, that gives a clear direction of travel for our next emission reduction actions.

What’s next?

Thanks to green electricity, our foundry now runs on a much smaller footprint. But it’s a footprint nonetheless; and we want to reduce it further. This is what it’s been looking like since the beginning of January:



The four biggest items here are gas and oil heating systems, as well as technical and production gases. Of these four, the gas heating on the shopfloor can be tackled relatively easily. We’ll be electrifying it soon, by replacing it with infrared technology.

Bit by bit, we’re chopping down the carbon footprint of our foundry, showing how quickly progress can be made on the road to a more sustainable future. Even in one of the most energy-intensive industries.

* By 2021, scope 2 emissions were calculated using the location-based method.