Cummins: Driving Zero-Emission Goals With Innovative Tech

Operating in 190 countries with more than 70,000 employees, Cummins is a global enterprise and energy-to-power solutions provider. The business is driven by the goal of providing the right solutions for its customers to promote their sustainability ambitions, whether that’s regarding environmental, economic or community sustainability. 

Destination Zero highlights Cummins’ ambitious goal of adopting a zero-emission footprint by 2050, through achieving zero emissions, zero waste and zero water usage within its operations. 

“This applies to Cummins' operations and to our customers use of our products as we develop engines for use on low-carbon fuels and develop new energy conversion solutions to help our customers meet their sustainability goals,” Gary Johansen, VP Engineering at Cummins says. 

“We recognise that all of the markets that we serve have different economic equations to solve. They all have different market adoption drivers in terms of what’s the right solution for them, so our focus is helping our customers meet their sustainability goals in a pragmatic way.

“That being said, we recognise that there’s not going to be a light switch designed to enable businesses to adopt zero emissions by 2050. Our customers have a huge installed base of assets already operating today which are sometimes held for decades, so they may need retrofit solutions to help them make a meaningful step to reducing emissions while still sweating the assets they’ve got on hand.”

From here, Cummins is able to approach customers with solutions that make sense from a sustainability perspective, particularly in terms of efficiency, productivity, and availability of asset affordability.

Advancing technologies and emissions reduction 

To achieve these goals, Cummins is investing in a broad array of technologies that the business believes are meaningful and important for future sustainability efforts. For example, Cummins is investing in fuel-cell technology through Accelera, the businesses zero-emission space that is producing electrical power from hydrogen. 

“We recognise that battery energy storage is a critical part of many of our applications moving forward,” Johansen says. “So, we're investing in battery energy storage and fuel cell technologies, while advancing core technologies of today, including internal combustion engines to run on low and no carbon fuels.”

Additionally, Cummins has been advancing emissions technology in all its markets for over a hundred years and is continuing to do so today. In fact, since Johansen joined Cummins 31 years ago, the business has developed and implemented technologies to reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) and hydrocarbons emissions from all the business' engines by over 99%.

Cummins has been advancing internal combustion engine (ICE) efficiencies and emissions for decades – and continues to provide heavy investments. “Our exhaust emissions technology and other critical components, such as fuel systems, air handling systems and electronic controls are all critical to reducing emissions and improving fuel efficiency,” Johansen explains.

“The world needs us to decarbonise our infrastructure, and Cummins is providing opportunities to do so, as we serve so many which are crucial to our communities. Because of this, I don’t think there’s ever been a more exciting time to work at Cummins, or in the power space.”

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