Scania manufacturing plant goes fossil free thanks to RME and HVO

In Sweden, Scania’s cab production plant in Oskarshamn, Sweden, enters 2021 as fully fossil free. It will thereby be the first of its major production plants around the world to successfully phase out carbon emitting production elements.

The largest contribution to reducing carbon emissions has been to convert the three ovens – water drying, powder and seam sealing – for the primer painting process from fossil diesel to the biofuel RME (Rapeseed Methyl Ester). That alone reduced Oskarshamn’s climate impact by 60 percent.

The final major step has been to also power ovens for the topcoat painting process by RME. Meanwhile the last diesel-powered forklifts have been phased out in favor of electric propulsion and those internal transport vehicles that were previously operated on fossil diesel switched to an on-site supply of the renewable biofuel HVO (Hydrotreated Vegetable Oil).

Scania has made a firm commitment, in line with the Science Based Target initiative, to halve its own carbon emissions by 2025, with 2015 as the baseline year. Additionally, Scania will reduce carbon emissions from the use of its products by 20 percent, also by 2025.