Emissions and energy
Reducing consumption
As a result of energy-intensive processes at high temperatures and large consumption of raw materials, the world’s iron and steel production accounts for a large share of global emissions of greenhouse gases. As one of the largest foundry groups in Northern Europe, and thus an emitter of greenhouse gases, we are committed to continuing our work to reduce emissions connected with our operations and to share our results with stakeholders.
Mapping of carbon emissions
In 2022, BIRN has partnered up with ReFlow. The purpose of this collaboration is to map carbon emissions from our processes and products. The collaboration is part of the sustainable strategy for the entire BIRN Group and will help set even more ambitious and realistic goals in the future.
Energy consumption
Optimising our energy consumption is one of the areas in which we can actively reduce our climate footprint. This applies especially to the electricity we use for melting, hot holding, casting and treatment of cast iron.
In collaboration with Fellowmind, Inuatek and University of Southern Denmark, BIRN has initiated a large-scale project on collection of energy and process data from melting furnaces, machinery and other production equipment. The purpose is to acquire better data insight, which can lead to decisions that can significantly minimise energy consumption and climate footprint.
Your certified partner!
At BIRN, we are constantly setting new goals for using resources more efficiently in our processes, including by minimising waste and improving our energy efficiency. 
Heat recovery
Every year, BIRN casts about 45,000 tonnes of cast iron. Cast iron production involves some energy-intensive processes at high temperatures that give off large amounts of heat from cooling. Instead of letting the energy go to waste, we have worked for a number of years to utilise the excess heat from a number of processes, including melting, hot holding, casting and heat treatment. In addition, we utilise recycling from our ventilation systems.
Historically, BIRN has emitted excess heat to the air from cooling towers. Today, the cooling towers run with reduced operations, and the heat is used for heating of building premises.
of our heating of premises comes from heat recovery from production
heat recovery in 2021
reduction of heating oil and lubricating oil
New and improved surface treatment
In 2018, BIRN began work on a new surface treatment plant. This resulted in the closure of the old painting plant and its large drying ovens.