Green transition, resources and CO2 in production

The regulation for industrial operator training requires that you as an apprentice have knowledge of the connection between resource consumption, CO2 emissions and climate impact, and that you can contribute to green transformation in production. It is not by chance — energy and resources have become an economic and legal reality that manufacturing companies cannot ignore, and the operator is in the middle of daily operations where the consumption actually happens.

With the green tax reform for industry which took effect in 2025 the CO2 tax on fossil fuels has been significantly increased for companies not covered by the EU quota system. At the same time the compensation for CO2 tax — what companies can be reimbursed — is set to fall gradually year by year from 53.33% in 2025 to 42.67% in 2026 and is phased out completely towards 2030. This gives companies clear economic reason to invest in more energy-efficient systems and to use energy better — and it is you as an operator who in practice determines how energy is used hour by hour.

A large part of energy consumption in production lies in heating, cooling, pressure and idling. A facility running idle between orders uses energy without delivering any product. An incorrect temperature or pressure setting can cost far more energy than it saves in quality. As an operator you are the one who can see and correct that sort of thing in practice — not by guessing, but by knowing the facility's correct operating point and turning off or putting on standby when the line actually stands still.

Waste — discarded goods, surplus material and incorrectly sorted rubbish — costs double: both in raw materials and in the energy already used to process them. Circular economy is about keeping materials in circulation instead of discarding them: reuse of packaging, recycling of metal and plastic shavings, and proper sorting so that waste can actually be recycled instead of being burned or buried. As an operator, it is often you who physically sorts and handles the waste — and it is your habits that determine whether the sorting actually succeeds.

The gradual increase in CO2 tax and phase-out of the relief is a deliberate political tool: the more expensive it becomes to emit CO2, the greater the economic incentive to invest in more efficient systems, better insulation, heat recovery and electrification of processes that previously ran on fossil fuels. Production feels this as a requirement for new system investments, but also as intensified focus on ensuring that the equipment already exists is used as efficiently as possible — and this is where daily operations and your insight as an operator carry significant weight.

Many companies have begun to measure and document energy consumption per production line per order or per shift — often through the same digital system you already use for production data. This means that your energy and resource consumption becomes visible in a completely different way than before and that good habits at the line count towards the company's overall climate account. Understanding the connection between what you do at the buttons and the number that ultimately appears in the accounts is part of what the regulation calls contributing to green transformation in production.

“The greenest energy is the one that is never used unnecessarily — and it is the operator who determines whether it is.”