Ceratizit wins environmental award for its sustainable upGRADE carbides
December 1, 2023
Ceratizit, part of the Plansee Group and headquartered in Mamer, Luxembourg, has received the Prix de l’Environnement 2023 from the Luxembourg industry association FEDIL for the process used to manufacture the carbide grades in its upGRADE product family. By using secondary raw materials from an optimised recycling process, the upGRADE carbide grades offer high performance at a particularly low carbon footprint.
“Mining ore containing tungsten already pays off starting at a content of 0.06%. This means that around 200 tonnes of ore have to be transported to obtain one tonne of metallic tungsten, which requires a lot of energy,” stated Dr Ralph Useldinger, Head of Group Analytics and Fundamental R&D.
This energy requirement is why Ceratizit only uses secondary raw materials from the zinc recycling process for the upGRADE grades, in order to minimise the carbon footprint of the products. This means that emissions are almost exclusively the result of necessary electricity, which, since the beginning of 2023, Ceratizit has purchased exclusively through sustainable sources.
Frank Thomé, executive board member, also emphasised the role of the upGRADE in the company’s sustainability strategy: “They prove that more sustainable carbide products are possible without having to compromise on performance.”
To ensure this, Ceratizit only feeds high-quality, meticulously sorted carbide scrap into the recycling process. Useldinger explained, “In zinc recycling, the structure of the tungsten carbide remains unchanged. This means that the quality I put in is the quality I get out.”
The upGRADE product family currently features two carbide grades. CT-GS20Y for metalworking, which has already won the Best of Industry Award, and KLC20+ for knives, rods and saw teeth for woodworking, which was presented at LIGNA in May.
“Our goal is to be the leader in sustainability in the cemented carbide and cutting tool industry by 2025,” Thomé stated. “That’s why we are not only actively working to further reduce our corporate carbon footprint, but are also gradually adding more products with a particularly low product carbon footprint to our product portfolio.”
