Mapping A Low-Carbon Industrial Future With Hydrogen, Depolymerization – CleanTechnica

Report on Automation’s Role in Advancing Sustainable Development Goals in Manufacturing

1.0 Introduction: Automation as a Core Enabler for Decarbonization

A panel at Rockwell Automation’s 2025 Automation Fair highlighted automation’s critical role in the global transition from fossil fuels. Industry leaders from Bolder Industries, Utility Global, and Circulor presented a unified perspective on how automation is the foundational infrastructure for emerging decarbonization strategies. The discussion underscored that advanced automation is essential for achieving key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly those related to industry, clean energy, and responsible production.

2.0 Key Industrial Applications and SDG Alignment

2.1 Clean Hydrogen Production for Climate Action and Clean Energy (SDG 7, SDG 9, SDG 13)

Utility Global is leveraging an electrochemical process for clean hydrogen production, driven by policy pressures to reduce carbon intensity. Automation is central to making this technology viable for heavy industry.

• Contribution to SDG 13 (Climate Action): The technology allows facilities to lower Scope 1 through Scope 3 emissions by producing clean hydrogen from industrial waste gases.
• Contribution to SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy): It provides a pathway to cost-competitive clean hydrogen, a crucial component of the future global energy mix.
• Contribution to SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure): Automated control systems ensure the efficiency, stability, and economic viability required to retrofit capital-intensive plants, easing adoption for risk-averse manufacturers and fostering sustainable industrialization.

2.2 Circular Economy Innovations for Responsible Production (SDG 11, SDG 12)

Bolder Industries exemplifies the application of automation in creating a circular economy for end-of-life products, specifically scrap tires. This approach directly supports sustainable consumption and production patterns.

1. Waste Valorization: The company’s depolymerization process transforms scrap tires, which would otherwise contribute to landfill waste, into new feedstocks like recovered carbon black and circular oils.
2. Alignment with SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production): This model establishes a circular supply chain, reducing reliance on petroleum-based raw materials and promoting producer responsibility.
3. Support for SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities): By managing a significant waste stream, the process contributes to more sustainable urban and industrial environments. Localized manufacturing also reduces transport emissions.

Automation is critical for standardizing this process, ensuring consistent product quality, reducing operating expenses, and enabling the model’s rapid global replication.

2.3 Digital Traceability for Sustainable Supply Chains (SDG 9, SDG 12)

Circulor is deploying digital traceability solutions to meet increasing regulatory and consumer demands for transparency in complex supply chains, such as those for electric vehicle batteries and critical minerals.

• Ensuring Responsible Sourcing: The platform validates the provenance and embedded carbon of materials, which is essential for compliance with regulations like the EU’s battery passport. This directly supports the objectives of **SDG 12**.
• Driving Industrial Innovation: Automation shifts traceability from a manual, error-prone exercise to an auditable digital record. This allows manufacturers to identify upstream emissions hotspots and use transparency as a market differentiator, fostering innovation in line with **SDG 9**.
• Enabling Data-Driven Decisions: The system provides verifiable data that empowers companies to remediate suppliers and prove that recovered materials are produced responsibly.

3.0 Conclusion: A Unified Path Towards Sustainable Industrialization

The session demonstrated that while decarbonization technologies vary, they share a common enabling infrastructure: automation. Automated systems are indispensable for ensuring consistent quality, lowering production costs, creating verifiable data for compliance, and embedding regulatory readiness into industrial processes. As global markets tighten carbon constraints, automated intelligence is the critical element mapping the practical pathway to a low-carbon manufacturing future, thereby accelerating progress on **SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure)**, **SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production)**, and **SDG 13 (Climate Action)**.

Analysis of Sustainable Development Goals in the Article

1. Which SDGs are addressed or connected to the issues highlighted in the article?

• SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy: The article discusses the production of “cost-competitive clean hydrogen” as a key component of the transition from fossil fuels. It highlights hydrogen as a clean energy carrier that has three times the energy of natural gas without the fugitive emissions, directly contributing to the goal of providing clean energy.
• SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure: The central theme is the role of automation in transforming heavy industry. The article describes how innovations like electrochemical modules for hydrogen production, tire depolymerization, and digital traceability platforms are being used to upgrade industrial processes, making them more sustainable, efficient, and resilient.
• SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production: The article provides a clear example of promoting a circular economy through Bolder Industries, which converts scrap tires—a waste product—into valuable new feedstocks like “recovered carbon black and circular oils.” This directly addresses the need to reduce waste and manage resources sustainably. Furthermore, the discussion on digital traceability for battery materials to validate provenance and embedded carbon supports responsible production patterns.
• SDG 13: Climate Action: The overarching goal discussed in the article is decarbonization. All the technologies and strategies mentioned, from clean hydrogen to circular materials and supply chain transparency, are presented as methods for heavy industry to “cut emissions,” lower their carbon footprint (Scope 1, 2, and 3), and adapt to tightening carbon constraints, thereby taking urgent action to combat climate change.

2. What specific targets under those SDGs can be identified based on the article’s content?

• Target 7.2: By 2030, increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix. The article supports this target by describing the development of “clean hydrogen production” from industrial waste gases, which serves as a low-carbon energy source to replace fossil fuels in heavy industry.
• Target 9.4: By 2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes. The article directly addresses this by showcasing how automation enables the adoption of clean technologies like Utility Global’s electrochemical module and Bolder Industries’ depolymerization process to decarbonize manufacturing.
• Target 12.5: By 2030, substantially reduce waste generation through prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse. The work of Bolder Industries, which takes “scrap tires, traditionally destined for landfills,” and recycles them into new materials, is a direct implementation of this target.
• Target 13.2: Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning. The article notes that the industrial shift towards decarbonization is heavily driven by “policy pressure,” “producer-responsibility rules,” and “carbon-intensity scoring,” particularly in Europe and Asia. This shows how climate change measures are being embedded in regulatory frameworks that compel industries to act.

3. Are there any indicators mentioned or implied in the article that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets?

• Carbon-intensity scoring: The article mentions this is “tied to financial consequences” in Europe and Asia. This is a direct quantitative indicator used to measure the carbon footprint of industrial products and processes, relevant to SDG 13 and SDG 7.
• Reduction of Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions: The article explicitly states that Utility Global’s technology allows facilities to “lower scope 1 through scope 3 emissions.” These are standardized indicators for measuring a company’s overall carbon footprint and progress on climate action (SDG 13).
• Levelized cost of hydrogen: The article refers to producing hydrogen at a “levelized cost below market alternatives.” This economic indicator measures the affordability and competitiveness of clean energy, which is crucial for its widespread adoption (SDG 7).
• Volume of waste material recycled: The entire business model of Bolder Industries is based on processing “scrap tires.” The tonnage of tires diverted from landfills and converted into new feedstocks serves as a clear indicator for waste reduction and recycling rates (SDG 12).
• Auditable digital record of embedded carbon: Circulor’s platform creates an “auditable digital record” to “validate the provenance and embedded carbon of battery materials.” This serves as a specific indicator for supply chain transparency and responsible production (SDG 12).

4. Create a table with three columns titled ‘SDGs, Targets and Indicators” to present the findings from analyzing the article. In this table, list the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), their corresponding targets, and the specific indicators identified in the article.

Source: cleantechnica.com