Launched in December 2016, the Building Tomorrow campaign promotes the ways in which Volvo CE is helping to drive a more sustainable future.
The campaign is supported by a series of short films profiling Volvo CE customers using Volvo machines in an array of innovative construction projects that are helping to “build the world we want to live in”.
“This may be an ambitious statement, but it is one that brings alignment and purpose to Volvo CE’s sustainability ambitions,” Volvo CE president Martin Weissburg said.
The first film in the Building Tomorrow series featured the IceHotel in northern Sweden.
In biting temperatures, which can reach as low as -40oC, Volvo CE machines were captured helping to rebuild the famous hotel using ice harvested from the nearby Torne River.
The second episode took Volvo CE to the north of Doha, Qatar, where the new sustainable Lusail City is being built. In temperatures reaching up to 50c, more than 240 Volvo machines have been hard at work – enduring 24-hour days, based on a three-shift cycle – building a town designed to support 250,000 residents.
State of the art living
Part of Qatar’s “Vision 2030” – which aims to transform the Middle Eastern state into a society capable of achieving sustainable development by 2030 – Lusail City represents an ambitious vision for the future of Qatar.
Turning this vision into a reality, Lusail is being fitted with a district cooling system, featuring 175km of piping, making it one of the world’s largest central cooling systems. This will save an estimated 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually.
A 24km waste pipe is being laid underneath the city – an advanced and efficient way of disposing of human waste at recycling and treatment plants outside the city.
To encourage residents to adopt a sustainable lifestyle, a light railway, water taxi system and underground pedestrian tunnels are being constructed, promoting alternative means of travel.
Lusail has been under construction since 2009, and more than 45,000 workers are on site each day. A number of Volvo CE excavators, articulated haulers, wheel loaders and soil compactors are on site daily, clearing room for foundations and underground tunnels.
Though digging through the porous sandstone isn’t easy, it is the intense heat that provides the biggest challenge.
“All machines must be equipped with air-conditioning units, and operators are instructed to take regular breaks to prevent fatigue and heatstroke,” said Hadi Kaii, machine owner and Volvo CE customer at EIB Qatar.
Shahir El Essawy, business director of the Middle East and Africa at Volvo CE, said: “Volvo CE is just one of many companies involved in this project. It has been an honour to work alongside [Lusail project chief] Essa Mohammed Ali Kaldari and his team in building this iconic city.”
A sustainable future
The third Building Tomorrow episode was launched in June this year, about the Kouga wind farm on South Africa’s Eastern Cape, and the series will conclude with a film called Good Morning Tomorrow, which brings together a range of customer success stories, all endeavouring to build a better future for society.
“As a major player in the industry, we have a responsibility to provide customers with sustainable solutions, which are beneficial to the environment and society,” said Carl Slotte, Volvo CE’s president of sales for the EMEA region. “Together with our customers, we have the ability to shape what the world is going to be like in the future.”
To watch the Building Tomorrow series, visit volvoce.com/global/en/this-is-volvo-ce/what-we-believe-in/building-tomorrow/
The Australian distributor of Volvo CE is CJD Equipment.
Leveraging off the past to drive the future
{{image2-a:r-w:300}}With 180 years of technical know-how behind it and more than 75 years of excavator experience up its collective “sleeve”, Volvo Construction Equipment (Volvo CE) continues to develop some of the world’s most advanced excavators to meet the new challenges of urbanisation.
With a history that can be traced all the way back to 1832, Volvo CE is one of the pioneers of the modern construction equipment industry.
The company is famed for its innovations in wheel loaders and articulated haulers, but also boasts more than 75 years of excavator experience.
In 1939 Swedish company Åkerman launched its first eight-tonne rope shovel. The machine was such a success that by 1956 Åkerman specialised entirely in excavators and by 1985 it had sold more than 10,000 units globally. Volvo CE acquired Åkerman in 1991 and with it a whole wealth of knowledge and expertise.With the acquisition of Samsung Heavy Industries’ construction equipment division in 1998, including established excavator manufacturing operations in South Korea, Volvo branded excavators leapt onto the global stage.
Today, Volvo CE has R&D facilities for excavators around the world and excavator manufacturing plants in eight locations – and demand keeps on growing. Volvo is among the top brands for excavators globally, and over the past five years Volvo CE has achieved the strongest market share growth for crawler and wheeled excavators in the competitive European market.
The Volvo excavator range has likewise grown in size over the years, encompassing machines from 1.5 to 90 tonnes (compact, crawler and wheeled excavators, and high reach demolition machines).
“Excavators account for a large proportion of the overall construction equipment market – and the excavator market is growing,” said Carl Slotte, president of Volvo CE sales region EMEA. “This makes excavators an important strategic product for Volvo CE.”
One reason Volvo CE sees for the growth is increasing urbanisation. “Wheeled excavators are an attractive machine for contractors working in city environments; they are easy to transport, easy to manoeuvre for precise digging, and do not risk damaging paved surfaces,” Slotte said.
Slotte has also noted a growing trend for short-swing radius machines. “Short-swing radius machines are ideal for manoeuvring in city conditions where space may be limited,” he said. “When working on a road, for example, their compactness means less disruption to other lanes and the flow of traffic. A case in point: our EWR150E was one of our best-selling models in the Nordic countries last year. As urbanisation continues, we expect wheeled and short-swing radius excavators to become even more popular.”
Urban areas are developing worldwide at a rapid rate. By 2050 about 66 per cent of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas, according to UN projections. More than 60 per cent of the land projected to become urban by 2030 is yet to be built. With this in mind, Volvo CE is busy planning for the future, with new technologies to make construction quieter, safer, more efficient and more environmentally friendly; always working towards its goal of zero unplanned stops, zero emissions and zero accidents.
Earlier this year, Volvo CE unveiled the EX2 fully electric prototype compact excavator.
The EX2 delivers the same power and force as its conventional counterpart, with enough battery power to operate for eight hours in tough ground conditions – but with zero emissions, 10 times higher efficiency and 10 times less noise.
“The EX2 is purely a research project at the moment, but it showcases how our vision of high performance and environmental care could be realised,” Slotte said. “As we leverage the knowledge and experience of the Volvo Group within the area of electromobility, we know that electric machines are part of our future sooner or later.
“Whether designing the excavators of today or tomorrow, we co-operate with and involve our customers to meet the challenges they face – of fuel efficiency, emissions, noise, safety, versatility, manoeuvrability and controllability – to produce the very best machines we can. Our mission is to build the world we want to live in.”
Source: Volvo CE/CJD Equipment