Want to cut carbon? Think like a remanufacturer.

Last November, more than 150 business leaders and sustainability experts gathered in Springfield, Missouri, for the sixth RIC-RIT World Remanufacturing Conference (WRC). Though attendees represented a wide array of sectors and interests, they all had one thing in common: remanufacturing.

Remanufacturing is an industrial process for returning used or worn parts and products to a like-new or better condition. If you’ve never heard of remanufacturing before, don’t worry—it’s still a new idea for most people. But, whatever you know about it, you’ll want to hear what remanufacturers (“remanners”) have to say if you’re interested in strategies for realistically cutting carbon from industry, a sector that alone contributed 23 percent of U.S. emissions in 2022, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

After a century of restoring used components to brand-new quality, remanufacturers have answered a lot of the same tough questions that are now at the front door of many companies today because of climate change. Below are five lessons based on insights shared at the 2023 WRC conference that will be valuable to any type of manufacturer looking to get ahead of the curve when it comes to emissions.

1) Create value for your customers.

Step one for remanufacturers has always been to show how they can create value for their customers by helping them save money and achieve more with their existing products, equipment, or materials. So, it’s no surprise that this is how they approach climate goals, too.

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“You have low-hanging fruit. You should have been doing it yesterday, but you weren’t.” That’s what Simon Fischweicher says to companies that are hesitant about taking the first step.

Fischweicher is the head of corporations and supply chains for the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) in North America. CDP is a nonprofit that developed a carbon-disclosure system for investors, companies, and governments. He works closely with firms at the outset of carbon reporting, helping them to make the business-value case to their stakeholders.

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Fischweicher and CDP believe that the value of carbon accounting really comes home for skeptical companies when their suppliers and buyers start seeing climate as a real business risk. Mounting peer pressure along with the likelihood of new climate policies ring a clear message: Wait too long and you’ll be left chasing the ball.

A core value promise for remanufacturers has always been the value of their product. This proposition only becomes more enticing as companies look to address Scope 3 emissions. Scope 3 is a challenging category of greenhouse gases because it concerns emissions generated by up- and downstream supply chain partners, most of which occur outside a company’s operations.

Jeff Sutherland, chief engineer at Caterpillar Inc.’s remanufacturing division (Cat® Reman), points to the potential of “track and trace” technologies in driving shop-floor and supply efficiencies. These could uncover value that could be passed onto customers alongside broader sustainability benefits.

“One area where track and trace capability will help is in determining if there are process challenges that need to be corrected,” Sutherland said. “If we have more fallout of product and are having to replace those components with new, this helps organizations take corrective actions, whether it be more training for the team or identifying if new machining is necessary.”

“This can also help save in supply chain efficiencies as we can trace where the product is moving from and to, allowing companies to evaluate if more efficient movements on the material or product are necessary to save on logistics costs,” he added.

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2) Stand out from the fakers. 

“Greenwashing”—when a product or service implies sustainability credentials that, when examined more closely, are not really there—is nothing new to remanufacturers. And, as new policies are introduced, traditional manufacturers and consumers alike are in search of genuine options that can support sustainability goals.

A remanufactured product is not a refurbished or “used” product—it is intended to perform as well as or better than a newly manufactured equivalent. To achieve this, remanufacturers follow a comprehensive and rigorous nine-step industrial process.  

“One of the big challenges we see is that people assume the product is used,” explained Sutherland.  “However, we are completely disassembling the core that comes in, cleaning, inspecting, and remanufacturing it to a completely new full life. It gets a completely new identity.”

In 2017, the Remanufacturing Industries Council published a standard for remanufacturing that was accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), establishing specifications that characterize the remanufacturing process and differentiate it from other practices. Efforts are currently underway at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to create international standards for circular economy, which will specify guidelines for remanufacturing. Compared to a newly manufactured item, remanufacturing a product reduces greenhouse gas emissions ranging between 79 and 99 percent. Standardization enables remanufacturers to clearly demonstrate that what they do genuinely cuts emissions by avoiding raw material use and processing. For any company looking for ways to reduce carbon from their upstream supply chain, this is a clear message that resonates because it’s verifiable.

3) Get creative—and uncomfortable.

“If we’re going to get to zero carbon, we’re going to have to get creative, uncomfortable, and really lean into that,” says Jill Sanchez, director of sustainability for John Deere Company. Step one of leaning into it, according to Sanchez, is to reframe how we approach problems.

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She takes a question many companies are asking today: “How are we going to electrify our entire fleet?” For Sanchez, this way of framing a problem will only lead to organizational paralysis. Instead, she recommends putting it a different way: “How are we going to reduce the carbon footprint of our fleet?” This alternative take, she explained, allows people to consider a much wider range of solutions, like changing fuels or implementing telemetric fuel-monitoring devices. Reframing the problem like this makes it more actionable because the focus falls on optimizing an existing fleet rather than completely replacing it.

Brian Mormino, executive director of technical and environmental systems at Cummins Inc., believes that sustainability is all about reinvention. He believes that a company needs both quantitative goals and qualitative culture. The challenge really comes down to making that cultural shift.

“How do you force your organization to think through the whole process to the desired end?” he asked. The answer? Vision and innovation.

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Cummins, a manufacturer of diesel engines, aims to reach net-zero carbon by 2050 following its Destination Zero roadmap. He has learned through Cummins’ experience that, once a company’s culture is centered on achieving those goals, the rest will follow, even if it seems impossible.

That same faith in the spirit of innovation—grounded by the knowledge that sustainability has to be profitable to work—is what inspires Phil Graves, former CEO of Wild Idea Buffalo. The regenerative agriculture startup aims to sequester carbon dioxide within prairie topsoil while rebuilding soil health, all to offset the impacts of conventional farming. One ranch, according to the company, sequesters carbon equal to taking 39,000 cars off the road.

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4) Create a new market.

A circular economy business needs to be audacious, according to Bill Davies, vice president of Davies Office Inc., a company that remanufactures office furniture in Albany, New York. For him, this comes down to creating an entirely new space in the market.

In 1990, the value of the used- and refurbished-furniture market was estimated to be $500 million. By 2020, it was worth $3.75 billion. The woman-owned, ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) company saw market growth where no one else did in a sector where products don’t wear out, they “ugly out,” as Davies puts it.

At first, Davies had what he calls a “love-hate relationship” with large manufacturers of new furniture, like Steelcase and Herman Miller. Now, having proven the value his model provides his customers in terms of cost, quality, and environmental impact, these larger firms have a much more positive view of what Davies does and many have expressed interest in finding ways they can synchronize efforts to drive sustainability.

5) Change behavior.

“Want to change behavior? Repetition. Repetition. Repetition,” said Jack Stack during his conference open. Stack is a Springfield, Missouri, business leader known nationally for popularizing open-book management.

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The thing Stack thinks needs to be repeated is metric-based employee education and empowerment. It is an idea Stack introduced through the Great Game of Business™, a growth model that focuses on cultivating employee participation and ownership in a business’s success. And it’s an idea that Stack has proven—he launched SRC Holdings Corporation (SRC) in 1983, an employee-owned company that provides original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) with custom remanufacturing programs. The firm was named a Top 25 Best Small Company in America by Forbes.

SRC has thrived through remanufacturing sector in Springfield, a city that many OEMs, like John Deere, call their home. Stack’s experiment shows how remanufacturing not only supports sustainability in terms of environmental impacts, but also by providing high-paying, reliable jobs and driving local economies. This is important to post-industrial regions, like Springfield, where many traditional industrial employers have shrunk or left entirely.

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CNH Industrial Reman, based in Springfield and also launched by Stack, partnered with a local school district to provide workforce training and mentorship for students. The area’s community college, Ozarks Technical Community College, worked with area remanufacturers to launch a state-of-the-art, advanced training facility dedicated entirely to remanufacturing.

For Stack, the benefits of decarbonization, like remanufacturing, come down to building partnerships in new and unexpected ways, whether that’s within a company or across the supply chain.

“We try to get rid of the silos. And we get rid of the silos through community and collaboration,” he said.

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These takeaways are derived from presentations delivered at “Remanning for a Sustainable Zero-Carbon Industry,” the 2023 RIC-RIT World Remanufacturing Conference, held in Springfield, Missouri, November 7–9, 2023. The 2024 conference, “Breakthrough Reman: Rethinking operations, technology, and supply chains” will take place September 10–12 in Chicago. Learn more >