Levelling up - Could your elevator be more sustainable?

Quick word from our sponsor, 51tocarbonzero.com. If you're a CFO or board member staring down CSRD or Scope 3 and thinking, where do we even start? We at Sustainability Solved would point you to 51tocarbonzero.com. They turn complex, fragmented emissions data into something simple and give boards clear, audit-ready visibility on exactly where the reduction opportunities are. It's not another reporting tool that adds work. It's built so the data holds up when your auditor asks the hard questions. If that's a conversation worth having, get in touch with 51tocarbonzero.com, or just drop me a message and I'll point you in the right direction. Right, back to the episode.

Hi, and welcome to Sustainability Solved, the sustainability podcast.

Sustainable Business Podcast. I'm Will Richardson. Half the world's population lives in cities, and that number is expected to increase to 70% by 2050. As pressure increases on city space, we are increasingly building upwards for both our office space and our homes, which means we need efficient vertical transportation. Today we're discussing elevators. Something most of us don't give a second thought to. But there have been big developments in the technology and the supply chain which are making them much more sustainable. My guests today are Dr. Paula Kassaris, Global Head of ESG at TK Elevator, and Mark Bashford, Director of The Lift Consultancy. Now, can I start by asking you both to introduce yourself and tell us your roles, please? Paula?

Yeah, happy to start. My name is Paula Caceres and I am Global Head of ESG at TK Elevator. This is a leading company in the global elevator and escalator industry. In this role, I am particularly concerned with making our company and our products more environmentally friendly and more sustainable. Thank you for inviting me today.

Brilliant. And Mark?

Yes, thanks, Will. I'm Mark Bashford. I'm the Owner and director of The Lift Consultancy. We've actually just launched an energy monitoring system which we're rolling out to the marketplace, and something that TK Elevator have actually been discussing with us in the background, Paul. So that's going to be quite exciting.

That's brilliant. And I know that you've been thinking about this because you wrote a blog article for me, must have been 20 years ago, and on how energy-efficient lifts can be and the difference between it. So that's how long you've kind of been thinking about this space. So it's brilliant to finally get this out in the open.

Yes, it has been a while, Will. It has been.

So Mark, can you help us understand the broader picture of the elevator market? Are there a lot of old energy inefficient elevators in use in buildings at the moment?

Yes, in a nutshell. I mean, I've looked at this and logically, and this is my estimate, it can't be guaranteed, obviously, so don't pull me apart if I'm slightly out here on numbers, but you're looking at around 70% of the lifts in the UK market are using older technology, which is huge. The drive to make them more efficient is now becoming— it's almost a problem because the lift companies themselves can't actually deliver products fast enough to get them to where they need to be.

Okay, and Paula, TK Elevator became independent in 2020, but before that, in 2017, ThyssenKrupp Elevator became the first company to retrofit an existing elevator to achieve net-zero energy. Can you tell us about that project and about regenerative drive technology, please?

Yeah, the development of our net-zero elevator was motivated by our interest in reducing the overall energy consumption in the built environment. Across the world, elevators transport over 1 billion people each day and can account for up to 10% of the energy consumption of a building. Therefore, finding a solution to improve the energy efficiency of our elevators has always been essential for us. And about the regenerative drive technology, elevators integrating this feature are able to convert kinetic energy of the elevator into electricity that can be fed back into the building's power grid. The net-zero concept went one step further, focusing on improving energy efficiency of the elevator, not only during its operation, but also when the elevator is idle. Which can be as much as 70% of its working life. Additionally, the Net-Zero Elevator integrated solar panels used to compensate the remaining electricity consumption of the elevator. And following this development from some years ago, today elements of this concept can be found in other products. Among these, I would like to mention EO-X. Our energy-efficient and digitally native elevator for residential buildings that was recently launched in Europe. This elevator integrates optimized energy-saving features such as a new eco mode, which learns and adjusts the operation of the elevator to different traffic patterns, a regenerative drive that feeds energy back into the building, and a lighter weight, design. And overall, this results in up to 28% less energy required to move the elevator in the shaft.

Brilliant. When talking about it, and when listening to you, a lot of it does seem quite kind of, wow, it's obvious, but it's, it's obviously not obvious because we haven't done it before. I thought of hybrid cars and electric cars with the regenerative drive and the fact that when you put the brake on, that's doing it. I mean, I've got a friend of mine who runs a business called Graviticity, and their whole business is they chuck something down an old mine, something very heavy, and that generates electricity. I wonder if you can end up going, you know, you bring it up, but then the energy supports itself by going down.

Yeah, I mean, one of the biggest uses of energy in a lift is actually the empty car down.

Right.

The counterweight. We're trying now to encourage lift companies to balance slightly less than 50%, so it's less energy to go down. Buildings, certainly in the UK, in the commercial side, want you to walk in a building, get straight in your lift, and go to your floor. Okay, that's, that's the design. So you're used to this feeling of those lifts and people not waiting too long. For a lift to turn up. Unfortunately, energy and not waiting doesn't really currently go hand in hand. Okay, so if you want your building to be energy efficient, you're going to have to wait slightly longer. Not long, and I'm not talking minutes or hours here, you know, we're talking about 30, 35 seconds, maybe 40 seconds to wait for a lift to come down. But the empty lift down, where we used to drive all the lifts that are empty to the ground floor, so you walk in the building and there's a lift instantly there for you, is a waste of energy because all that driving down may not necessarily need to have happened.

Yeah.

So part of our energy monitoring that we're rolling out on IoT, it's literally, we're monitoring that and we're feeding that back into the building and the clients to say, look guys, you know, if you don't do this, you'll save yourself X amount of energy Per day. Per hour, we can get it down to.

Okay, yeah, okay, it's brilliant. So, Mark, to the user, elevators seem quite low-tech, but there have been some big developments behind the scenes. Can you tell us what destination dispatch is?

Yeah, of course. So destination control, destination dispatch, there's hall call destination, there's various different titles that this falls under. But they're mainly product names from companies. So effectively what it does is, if there are 10 people waiting in a lobby and you have 3 lifts, out of those 10 people, 4 of them are going to the 6th floor, 4 of them are going to the 7th, and etc. It will hold those people into that one lift. So whereas previously on a full collective lift you'd push an up button Everyone would just get in the first lift, and then every single button will be pushed because they want to stop everywhere. So every time the lift starts and stops, you've got a peak energy draw. So what destination does is put you into one lift with everybody else going to that floor. So you're going into the ground and getting out at your floor. It can have multiple stops, don't get me wrong, depending on the height of the building and everything else, but generally those stops are less. which makes your traffic handling much better and your energy reduced.

Right, gotcha. And Paula, if you have more efficient elevators, does that mean you have less of them and you use building space better?

Well, this is one aspect to it. So it is clear that our customers want to do the best use of the limited space in their buildings as efficiently as possible. The more people a building can accommodate, the more space people need to move around comfortably and safely. And there is no question that elevator shafts take space in the building. So, for sure, at TK Elevator, we think about this, how to use less space in the building with our elevators. And we have already some innovative solutions for this. One is our twin elevator. A system with 2 cars operating independently in a single shaft. Another one is Multi, the world's first cable-free elevator with several cars moving vertically and horizontally in one shaft, expected to need up to 50% less floor space for shafts than typical elevators. But on top of this, I would say that efficiency remains linked to reducing the carbon footprint of a building. And this is related to both the energy consumed in the operation of the building and to the materials used in the construction of this building. Older elevators may use up to 10% of a building's total energy consumption. But the elevator industry has responded to the growing need for sustainable solutions by developing elevator models that consume less and less energy, And today, the energy consumption of modern elevators can be reduced to 5%. Additionally, new elevators are also using less materials to make its construction lighter. Again, our latest elevator for residential buildings, EO-X, is our next biggest step in this regard. EO-X works with a low-consumption belt traction technology and has optimized energy-saving features that reduce its energy consumption up to 28% compared to previous elevator models in that segment. And in addition to this, it's a lighter construction that contributes to reduce the weight of the elevator and the overall materials used in the building.

That's brilliant. There's quite a lot of information there. My mind's slightly blown by the fact that you can have more than one elevator on a shaft. above each other. That's kind of completely— I don't know, I'm still reeling on that, to be honest with you.

Ironically, we're actually doing the TK Elevator twin at London Bridge over there. I'm working with you guys installing one of those over there, so that's going to be an interesting project.

It is indeed.

So it kind of— I don't know why I'm gesticulating on a podcast when you can only hear me, but Basically, it goes up and down independently of each other, and so someone can get on floor 4 and go to floor 8, and someone could get on floor 1 and go to floor 3 at exactly the same time. Yeah, or even floor 1 to floor 5 at the same time because it will have gone up.

Yeah, exactly that. So, there has been double-deck cars around for some time. Otis came out with them originally. So, TK Elevator brought out the Twin. It's kind of their version of a double deck, if that makes more sense to you. So you've got 2 cars entering, people getting in an upper and a lower car and going away.

Right.

The beauty of the TK elevator system is that inter-floor travel at the top part of the building can be dealt with one car whilst another car is serving the ground floor. So you can have 2 operations in completely different directions and 2 different functions, if you like. It also, if you've got deep enough pits and headroom, you can pull one car out of service. So if it's a light travel demand system, we can park one. That way your energy is coming down as well.

Gotcha.

So whereas before you'd have the double-deck car always pulling that weight and that energy, the TK elevator, well, you can pull one out of service, park it up for a while, and then when demand brings it in, it pulls itself automatically back in.

And that'll change the management of office space as well.

Yeah.

Because you can have big towers where you could actually advertise you will have your own lift for the top 10 floors. So in theory, they can then go up and down to each floor and be independent of the other lifts and so not need to wait either. So that's a kind of added benefit for that.

Exactly.

That's pretty cool.

Mark.

Are your clients asking for elevators that are more sustainable? And if so, what is driving that? And is it about saving space in buildings or reducing the long-term energy costs?

Of recent times, and I'm saying within the last 2 to 3 years, there's been a very big head turn by all sorts of clients. Now, we obviously deal with the life of an elevator. In our company, we don't just install them, as do TK, you know, they see it from beginning to end and they replace it. What has become more apparent is, say we're modernizing a building, okay, and it has existing elevators. Previously, 5, 10 years ago, that would be rip it out and replace it. All of that would go straight to landfill. They are now looking and asking, what if we keep the guides? What if we keep these products rather than taking it straight away to a landfill site. What can we do to modernize it, to bring it up to today's energy levels and standards without sending a load of steel back to the scrap heap? That's probably one of the biggest changes. But in terms of energy, every single new development I am on, it is the most highest, you know, subject around the table at any given point. You know, it means a lot to these people. You only have to look at the construction news in the UK and things like that. Every single one of them will tell you how credible they are to sustainability within their property. We work with Grosvenor Estates and they are probably one of the leading companies. They're taking SMEs like ourselves and actually training everybody on how to become carbon neutral. They've got Heart of the City, which is their charity. And through that, they do mentoring and groups for all of the companies that work for them, free of charge, to actually— free of charge to the companies, not to them— free of charge to bring up their knowledge and their base and everything else to become more sustainable and look at the planet as a whole.

Interesting. Paula, TK Elevator are an international company. And Mark's just talked about a very UK-centric view and the fact that sustainability is quite a driving force within the UK construction world. Are you seeing that around the world? Are you seeing pockets of it? What are you actually seeing internationally?

Well, in terms of buildings, I could say that overall we are seeing both trends in the building construction. So on the one hand, the interest in reducing the energy consumption of buildings But on the other hand, the interest on reducing the embodied carbon of the building, which depends on the environmental impacts of the materials used in the construction of the building. I would say that in the area of energy consumption during operation, buildings are already becoming significantly more efficient, and the interest is now turning more into reducing the embodied carbon. Okay.

And TK Elevator are using lighter materials to manufacture their products. What are these new materials?

Yes. So, well, mainly we are looking for, as I said, looking at the overall environmental impacts of the materials that we use in our elevators and also in our escalators. Reducing the total weight of the products, and therefore their environmental impact. And one reference of this would be the technology that we are using in the EO-X. EO-X is using the belt drive, and technically belt drives are a certain type of suspension and traction drive. Instead of the traditional woven steel cables, rope belts are used to hoist the elevator car. And we leverage this technology because it offers the perfect fit for residential buildings. Belts are lighter than steel cables and have a higher coefficient of friction, which makes them a more efficient drive. And they also save space in the shaft, and they are easier to maintain compared to steel cables, which need regular oiling. So overall, I think this is one of the main Improvements that we have done recently. This is, for instance, used in the new EO-X elevator and one of the main contributions to reduce the embodied carbon of the buildings.

Brilliant, brilliant. And I've got something I can't wait to ask this. So TK Elevator are developing an elevator which goes sideways as well as up and down, which actually sounds like something from Roald Dahl's Great Glass Elevator. What is the technology behind this and how will it help with sustainability?

Yeah, this is our multi-elevator, so a multi-system. This is the world's first cableless elevator with multiple cars in one shaft. And this is working with linear motor technology to move beyond traditional methods of transportation. I can tell you a lot about this. I really love this concept. You know, this is free from ropes. Designs moves elevators both vertically and horizontally in continuous— as a continuous metro station. And overall, Multi would bring greater capacity and shorter waiting times to users. It would set no limits in building height or shape, allowing architects to completely rethink designs. And it saves a significant amount of space inside the buildings. And consequently, that means a reduction in their carbon footprint as well.

Brilliant. Brilliant. And Mark, are there any other surprising innovations you've seen in the industry?

Yeah, I mean, in terms of sustainability, there's a particular product where they're looking at— actually, it's me that's looking at it, I should say. So basically, in traditional elevators, we're using a lot of steel. Putting into a counterweight, as I said before, getting that weight down is critical. But also on the flip side, we've got a lot of UPS batteries going into property to back it up in fire or to back it up when power goes down or something like that. So the safety side of the elevator itself. What I'm actually looking at with some gentlemen, and probably Paul, I would imagine, from TK, is to actually bring those batteries into the counterweight. The regen drive would actually charge those batteries. It doesn't go back to the grid; it goes back to the battery, and we could potentially see a self-driven elevator.

Brilliant.

It's not there yet, and it's a what you got the world's first there, Will. So there you go. It is something that I believe TK because I had a conversation with their guys when they launched the OX. down in London at Tobacco Dock, and they were talking to me about it, which is where we had the discussion. So it's quite new for sure, but it is something that I believe is technically capable, and it's there, you know, it's bringing all the components together. And what I'm looking for is the partner to help bring this together.

Yeah.

But in terms of sustainability, that's one side, but in terms of innovation, they're coming every day. We've got IoT. EOX is on IoT. It's telling the engineers when not to go to site. You know, it's flagging up when they need something done rather than going in every single day, going in doing something. It's telling them where to go and look, and all of that is driving down energy use. If we're not driving to the site in the first place because there's nothing wrong, you've just saved all of that. And it is looking at the whole thing Globally as a product, rather than just the unique thing of sitting in a building. That's not just it. There could be 10, 20, 30 people looking after that lift behind the scenes. If you take it that far back, and that's why IoT just presents an opportunity to look at the lift from afar and say, am I okay? It doesn't stop us having to go out. That's a legal requirement. But what it does is like a missed call if For instance, lift goes out of service, but then comes back into service. We can watch that on IoT to see if it requires an engineer's visit.

Right.

And when you say IoT, Internet of Things, am I right there?

Yes.

Okay, cool. Brilliant. Paula, can you tell us what MAX is and how it is helping sustainability, please?

Well, MAX is our digitalized solution to improve our maintenance of elevators and escalators. For us at TK Elevator, sustainability and digitalization are no longer separate entities. We see digitalization as one lever for further reduction of the carbon footprint, for instance, by extending the service life of the elevator. And MACS is that solution. That's our innovative cloud-based predictive maintenance solution. It collects real data from the elevators, and using intricate algorithms, we calculate the remaining lifetime of each elevator's key component system, and we determine which parts will require maintenance and when. With the right maintenance, we can extend the service life of the elevators tremendously. Though some parts will be replaced along the way, this is a much smaller intervention than a full replacement of the elevator, which still may become necessary eventually. So, This reduces the cost and effort for the customer, but again, it also helps reduce the carbon footprint of the building. And for us, additionally, MACHS can help us optimize the logistics of our maintenance activities and reduce the mileage of our service technicians. At the end, we reduce the fuel consumption, and with this, we also reduce our carbon emissions related to the fleet.

Brilliant. Mark, there's no escaping it, elevators use a lot of energy. Can we reduce society's dependency on them?

If we had one-storey bungalows everywhere, we wouldn't need lifts and there wouldn't be any. So it's just a logical thing. But in towns, certainly within the UK and most of the world to be fair, they are congregated around the capitals or around the hub where they need to be, and the only place to go is up. And, you know, that presents a huge challenge to us, to the lift industry, and to developers to get that down because it is difficult. But ultimately, we have to pose a question: do you need to use the lift or not?

Yeah, you know, yeah, we ask our, we ask our clients to walk.

Yeah.

It's better for you in both senses.

Exactly. You know, we've got a building in Edinburgh that we do currently They sponsor people a pound not to use the lifts, and every time they go up and down to their desk— it's only a 4-story building, it's not huge— but they're paying them to charity, not to them directly. They're paying charity to make them not use the lifts.

Right.

You know, that kind of concept is out there and it is becoming more so. But however, tall buildings need lifts, and it doesn't— you know, you're not going to walk up 27 stories. Well, not every day you're not. I'm certainly wouldn't. That was 15 years ago, Will. But yeah, as I say, as an industry, we're doing some, but I think collectively we can do more.

Brilliant. And what's next for TK Elevator, Paula?

Well, there's really a lot. You know, yeah, I think we are on the right path, but I mean, there's really a lot for the whole industry to do to contribute to keep this world and to make this world more sustainable. And of course, that we as a company, we have a responsibility to be part of that. We remain committed to keeping people worldwide moving more efficiently and sustainably through our services, our products, and our innovations. You know, we have recently been scored with the top grade A by CDP's annual climate ranking. This is the 3rd year in a row, and this motivates me further to drive our initiatives that will help us reach our ultimate goal of becoming climate neutral latest in 2050. On top of this, at TK Elevator, we constantly strive to achieve our sustainability goals. We are regularly reducing our Scope 1 and 2 emissions, which are related to our direct operations, And we are coming closer to our long-term target, 53% reduction by 2030 from a 2019 base year. We have further committed to reducing our Scope 3 emissions related to the use of sold products 23% by 2030 from a 2021 base year. And all our innovative solutions will contribute to this. And It will be the case. I mean, the new EOx, our recently launched eco-efficient and natively digital elevator platform for the residential building in Europe, that will play a major role in reaching that goal.

Brilliant. And it sounds, reading between the lines, that you've signed up to science-based targets.

Yes. Yes, we did.

You're using the language without the words. So I was kind of like, it sounds like the science-based targets here.

Of course. Yes. I mean, that's, that's part of our commitment. We have set science-based targets and our targets for the reduction of the Scope 1 and 2 emissions and the reduction of Scope 3 emissions related to the use of sold products have been validated by the science-based targets initiative.

That's really, really good. We need everyone, any organization to at least set their science-based targets. They don't need them validated. They need to set them.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, thank you both so much for your time. And who knew there was so much to talk about lifts and your industry? It's, it's fascinating, and it really is a big part of the building. What, 10% of the energy, it can be a lift, and you can pull it down to 5%. So I think at this very moment with energy prices, everyone should be looking at it. and thinking about the costs and long-term costs derived from your lifts and your lift consumption. So thank you both.

You're welcome. Thanks, Will.

Very welcome.

And that's it for this episode of Sustainability Solved, the sustainable business podcast. Thank you to my guests, Dr. Paula Caceres and Mark Bashford. I'm Will Richardson at Green Element. For more information on the Green Element, the Lift Consultancy, TK Elevator, And everything we have discussed today, please check out the show notes. If you have any feedback or questions, you can get in touch with us @GreenElement on social media. And don't forget to follow this podcast on your favorite app and write us a review. Thank you.

Thank you.