Low-Carbon Circular Materials by KONE

Most of the emissions associated with KONE activities occur outside its immediate operations in the value chain. To achieve its product-related emissions reduction target of 40%, KONE will cut emissions from products’ lifetime energy use and materials by further improving its products’ energy efficiency and material circularity.

KONE is taking solid actions across the whole supply chain. The company is working together with its suppliers to reduce the carbon footprint from raw materials manufacturing, internal production processes, logistics operations, and end-of-life to increase the use of sustainable and long-lasting materials, enabling circularity processes (e.g., reuse, recycling, disassembly). The main goals include increasing the materials’ reusability, upgradeability, reparability, and recycled material content and enabling high-quality recycling.

We focus on greenhouse gas emissions from raw materials manufacturing, internal production processes, logistics operations, and our products’ use phase and end-of-life.

In the manufacturing phase of our products’ lifecycle (from raw materials production), we are searching for materials that have similar characteristics as the ones we currently use but with a smaller carbon footprint and processes enabling the reuse of recyclability of current materials. We strongly emphasize material circularity to identify materials suitable for promoting remanufacturing/reuse and high-quality recycling. Ideally, solutions should focus on durability, upgradeability and reparability, reusability, and alternative green packaging.

In the use phase, we seek ways to make our products more energy-efficient and use renewable energy.

The examples below represent our ideas in these areas, but please remember that your solution can go beyond them.