Taiwan Machine Tool and Accessory Builder’s Association Announcing the promotion of PCR to Reduce Carbon in the Industry and Create a Green Supply Chain for Machine Tools

Release date : 11.30.2023

Following the release of The European Green Deal in 2019, in February 2023, European Commission proposed "Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive" (also known as the "European Supply Chain Act"), which mainly stipulates that enterprises in the EU should carefully manage the social and environmental impacts of the entire value chain, including suppliers, their own operations, and the upstream and downstream relationships of their products/services, with a view to strengthening the resilience of the supply chain. It is hoped that this will strengthen the resilience of the supply chain. With the Carbon Boundary Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) officially implemented in the European Union on October 1st, 2023, and the US Clean Competition Act (CCA) coming into effect in 2024 at the earliest, promoting the green transformation of Taiwan's machine tool supply chain has become a pressing issue.

In recent years, Taiwan Machine Tool and Accessory Builder’s Association (TMBA) has been actively promoting the green transformation of the supply chain. Following the release of the "Reference Manual for Sustainable Management of the Machine Tool Industry in Response to Carbon Reduction" in October 2022, which clearly points out the blueprint for sustainable development of the  Taiwan machine tool and accessory industry in response to energy saving and carbon reduction, TMBA has also conducted a series of courses on GHG inventories and carbon footprints this year in the hope of assisting its members to build up a complete set of knowledge related to carbon emissions and the ability to calculate the carbon footprints.

In addition, this year, TMBA also worked with the Industrial Development Administration (IDA) and the Chinese National Federation of Industries (CNFI) to establish the first carbon reduction chain for machine tools in Taiwan. At the same time, the association also encourages major domestic machine tool and component manufacturers to participate in the Carbon Reduction Chain, including Tongtai Machine & Tool, VICTOR TAICHUNG, SEYI MACHINERY, YEONG CHIN MACHINERY, HIWIN Technologies, YUAN JUN FONG CASTING, and FONGEI INDUSTRY, etc., all of which have achieved considerable results in reducing carbon emissions. TMBA will pool the strengths of the industry to promote the upgrading and transformation of the green industrial chain. We hope that the government will allocate resources and through the collaborative efforts of the industry and government, the green transformation experience of the machine tool industry will serve as a reference for the rest of the domestic industries to transform.

Taiwan Machine Tool and Accessory Builder’s Association (TMBA) has officially announced that it will start the work related to the Product Category Rules (PCR) in the fourth quarter of this year. Based on the classification of the main product categories of machine tools, TABA has initially identified six categories, namely, Machining Centers, Lathes, Drilling, Boring, Milling M/C, machines, Grinding machines, Presses & Shearing machines, EDM, Laser machines cutting M/C, etc. TMBA will establish credible parameters and rules for calculating the carbon footprint of machine tools, through the TMBA's committee mechanism, to serve as the industry's standard for the calculation of the carbon footprint of the machine tool and accessory industry in the domestic market.

The Taiwan International Machine Tool Show (TMTS 2024) in March next year will organise the Green Machine Tool Energy Saving Label Assessment to encourage domestic machine tool and accessory builders to actively invest in the research and development of green energy-saving technologies and applications, as well as the introduction of international energy-saving standards (ISO), and to enhance the willingness of domestic machine tool and accessory builders to invest in green technologies or green manufacturing processes by observing the green transformation experiences of the participating manufacturers, in order to achieve the goal of a green supply chain for machine tools.