Axis Capital Teams with John Deere on Local Environment Machinery

Who says construction industry and heavy machineries are only for dirty works? Well, John Deere proves you wrong. Along with forest machine productivity, high operational reliability, and low operating costs, minimizing the impact on the environment is another John Deere attribute that supports its customers’ competitiveness. Axis Capital Group, a company which sells and rents capital equipment in Singapore has been in partnership with John Deere since its expansion to Jakarta, Indonesia and now, the two leading companies are distributing environmental friendly machineries to large operators across Asia.

Before product manufacturing, John Deere especially looks into the environmental aspect of the machine in the development phase. Expertise in design reduces the environmental impact of forest machines at all life cycle phases. Reviews and studies are being made and as much as possible, the company invests only in the latest technical solutions in minimizing the environmental impact of the machines in the usage phase.

Life Cycle

The life cycle of a forest machine is divided into five phases: production of materials, manufacturing of the machine, usage of the machine, maintenance and repairs, and the post-use disposal. The VTT Technical Research Center of Finland has studied and assessed the environmental impact of a harvester, forwarder and slash bundler base on the life cycle concept. The percentages of the total environmental impact of the different life cycle phases have been calculated in the study using both the Eco-indicator 95 and Eco-indicator 99H methods.

Material Production

The environmental impact of the production and transportation of materials – steel, cast iron and rubber, and the components made from them – is 3.0% of the total environmental impact for a harvester, 5.0% for a forwarder, and 5.6% for a slash bundler. While John Deere has no direct influence on the production processes of raw materials, warnings on what to use are given by the experts and the company can choose raw materials suppliers that take environmental issues into consideration and have certified environmental management systems.

Usage

The emissions caused by the production and consumption of fuel are calculated as usage phase environmental impacts in the life cycle assessment of the forest machine. Accordingly, the environmental impact of harvester usage accounts for 93% of the total impact, forwarder usage 88%, and slash-bundler usage 89%. Emissions are the biggest factor in the environmental impact of the life cycle of a forest machine. John Deere’s product development is constantly pursuing new technical solutions to reduce the consumption of fuel and oil. The driving habits of forest machine operators also have a significant impact on fuel consumption.