Environment

Environment

Sustainable Products and Services

As Toromont’s customers respond to the imperative to embrace environmentally sustainable operations, we anticipate that demand will increase for lower carbon products, as well as for technologies and solutions that support energy conservation, efficiency and cleaner operations. Toromont continues to position itself to anticipate and meet market demands including by partnering with suppliers and customers in the development, testing and deployment of sustainable products and services.

Examples of Products We Sell to Assist Customers with Sustainability

Examples of Services We Offer to Assist Customers with Sustainability

ECO CHILL, ammonia heat pumps for district heating, natural refrigerant solutions, water treatment and adiabatic condensers

Path to Net Zero consulting, CIMCO building controls recommissioning

Electric rope shovels and electric hydraulic mining shovels

Remote asset and condition monitoring

Battery Electric underground loaders and lift trucks, diesel electric drive trucks compatible with Cat Trolley Assist

Data insights and predictive analytics

Autonomous and semi-autonomous operations of mining trucks, drills, underground and dozing applications

Product support for next-generation equipment

Used equipment

Machine rentals (small and heavy)

Alternative energy, distributed energy and heat recapture packages, micro-grid solutions (battery, solar, wind)

TPaaS subscriptions to machine control systems

Remanufactured engines, drivetrain components, hydraulic pumps, motors and cylinders

Remanufacturing/reconditioning/ventilation modifications, engine control software upgrades/ emission testing to ensure compliance with stringent Tier IV emission standards

Examples of Products We Sell to Assist Customers with Sustainability

ECO CHILL, ammonia heat pumps for district heating, natural refrigerant solutions, water treatment and adiabatic condensers

Electric rope shovels and electric hydraulic mining shovels

Battery Electric underground loaders and lift trucks, diesel electric drive trucks compatible with Cat Trolley Assist

Autonomous and semi-autonomous operations of mining trucks, drills, underground and dozing applications

Used equipment

Alternative energy, distributed energy and heat recapture packages, micro-grid solutions (battery, solar, wind)

Remanufactured engines, drivetrain components, hydraulic pumps, motors and cylinders

Examples of Services We Offer to Assist Customers with Sustainability

Path to Net Zero consulting, CIMCO building controls recommissioning

Remote asset and condition monitoring

Data insights and predictive analytics

Product support for next-generation equipment

Machine rentals (small and heavy)

TPaaS subscriptions to machine control systems

Remanufacturing/reconditioning/ventilation modifications, engine control software upgrades/ emission testing to ensure compliance with stringent Tier IV emission standards

How We Help Customers Achieve Their Sustainability Goals:

For energy efficiency and emission reduction, we offer a variety of solutions. In addition to selling new Cat equipment that meets stringent Tier IV engine emission regulations that require the use of ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel, Toromont partners with Caterpillar to provide machines that run on electric energy. We support one of the largest installed Cat fleets of electric drive hydraulic mining shovels, service a large installed base of electric-drive rope shovels and drills, and are contributors to field-follow tests of Battery Electric Vehicles (“BEV”) for zero emission underground mining. These pilot tests, along with investments in Toromont’s product support infrastructure, encourage customer adoption of alternative energy systems, improve our knowledge of lifecycle BEV machine servicing and assist in market acceptance and growth.

In our mining territories, Toromont actively engages in developing Cat Trolley Assist opportunities. Cat Trolley Assist allows haul trucks to exit mining pits using electricity rather than fossil fuels, resulting in a smaller carbon footprint. This technology is compatible with the diesel-electric drive Cat trucks we sell.

Autonomous mining vehicles are also part of our sustainability solutions. As the development of autonomous vehicles accelerates in mining and other industries, shift changes and other operator-driven downtime events will be eliminated or reduced. Production targets can therefore be met with fewer equipment assets, which will reduce the carbon footprint of existing diesel-powered drivetrains. Autonomous vehicles can also be operated safely around people and other machines as they are programmed to emulate the most advanced driving skills of experienced operators. In roadbuilding and construction, grade-control systems reduce material overages, saving customers time, and fuel associated with multiple pass throughs.

Many of our long-standing sustainability collaborations with customers and Caterpillar are in the areas of landfill-gas-to-energy and combined heat and power (co-generation) district energy. We have installed and continue to support seven landfill gas-to-energy plants in our territories that use Toromont-supplied generators to capture harmful methane that is transformed into electricity. Our expertise in these areas dates back several decades and in the case of combined heat and power, our solutions are used in diverse applications including district energy, greenhouse, healthcare and manufacturing.

Toromont is a leader in providing remanufactured equipment components. Through our dedicated remanufacturing facilities, we clean, rebuild and recondition highly worn engines, hydraulic cylinders and other equipment parts as many as four times over the product lifecycle.

Additionally, we install the latest engine control software, and emission test rebuilt engines against factory specifications to ensure compliance. In the case of underground mining equipment, we repower machines such as loaders by replacing engines to meet more stringent emissions regulations. Through piece-part changes to turbochargers and injectors, as well as software upgrades that modify fuel mapping, we reduce emissions and extend the productive use of equipment by customers. All replaced parts are recycled in accordance with best industry practices.

Remanufacturing is often associated with circular economy efforts, which are good for the environment as they reduce scrap and energy-intensive primary manufacturing, and good for customers as our component exchange program provides ready access to high-demand parts.

Toromont also invests in rental equipment fleets – both heavy and light machines – to fulfill short- and medium-term customer needs. Through these activities as well as purchasing, reconditioning and selling used equipment, we extend the lifecycle of equipment and create cost-effective solutions for customers that are accretive to their business sustainability goals, as well as our own.

Machine condition monitoring is another area that helps our customers with their sustainability goals. By monitoring equipment in the field, we can re-set fault codes without dispatching service vehicles and proactively maintain systems so that machines continue to run efficiently. The use of telematics and GPS means our service vehicles are dispatched directly to the location of the equipment on a customer’s site, which reduces time to service and conserves fuel.

In building its equipment, CIMCO Refrigeration favours natural refrigerants with ultra-low Global Warming Potential (GWP), the metric that compares the global warming impacts of different greenhouse gases. In 2021, CIMCO turned its preference into an across-the-board reality by eliminating the manufacture of all recreational ice rink packages that use high-GWP refrigerants, including HFO blends such as R513a. As a result, all of CIMCO’s ice rink refrigeration packages align with the Kigali Amendment and the Montréal Protocol and exceed the new California Air Research Board’s regulation that all new ice rinks use only refrigerants with a GWP of less than 150.

After redesigning its product lineup, CIMCO now offers four climate-friendly ice rink refrigeration packages, as well as heat-recovery technology to help ice rink owners further reduce the carbon footprint of their operations.

It was almost two decades ago that CIMCO introduced a heat-recovery system to its recreational ice rink customers that reduces their energy consumption and greenhouse gases while utilizing natural refrigerants (CO2 and ammonia) in place of climate-polluting CFCs and HFCFs. This innovation, called CIMCO ECO CHILL®, earned a spot on the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) Pathway to Net-Zero Cooling Product List, compiled with the help of Greenpeace. Since its launch, CIMCO has installed more than 200 ECO CHILL systems across North America.

More recently, CIMCO advanced its technology to incorporate a full Net Zero Naturally line-up of refrigeration equipment for both industrial and recreational markets – so named to reflect CIMCO’s ability to help customers achieve their net zero goals. Achieving net-zero emissions means no GHGs are emitted, or that they are reduced to the lowest possible level. A net-zero building that uses industrial refrigeration technology would: obtain all its energy through clean electricity or on-site power; recycle or reuse energy through waste heat recovery; and use refrigerants with neutral emissions.

In 2021, CIMCO introduced its Pathway to Net Zero to help refrigeration customers understand what net zero is, and how to achieve it. The three-step graphic on the previous page illustrates how customers can eliminate refrigerant emissions, optimize energy consumption and harness green power including district energy sources (such as those equipped by Toromont Power Systems), solar, wind and biomass.

As the world transitions to a cleaner economy, there are immediate opportunities for CIMCO to firmly establish itself as the market leader in net zero solutions.

Eliminate Refrigerant
Emissions

Optimize Energy
Consumption

Harness Green Power

Looking Ahead

In collaboration with Caterpillar and our customers, we will continue to expand the installed base of BEV, energy-efficient and autonomous machines in our territories and train our workforce on maintaining this equipment. We will advance the collection and analysis of machine-level data to give customers proactive insights into production, efficiency and equipment service status. We will assist CIMCO’s industrial and recreational refrigeration customers to achieve their pathways to net zero with advice, audits and our expanding solutions. We will prepare for the expansion of our Remanufacturing operations, which will include, over the medium term, a move to a new, purpose-built facility in Ontario that will employ state-of-the-art energy and water management systems.

2021 Key Outcomes and Actions

  • rebuilt 90 machines and remanufactured almost 4,400 components
  • deployed additional capital and resources to our five remanufacturing facilities to enhance capacity and effectiveness
  • completed rebuilds of two Cat 793 mining trucks – a project involving over 2,000 labour hours between our Québec City branch and remanufacturing operations
  • discontinued CIMCO sales of all high GWP refrigerants
  • booked orders for energy efficient machines and advanced technologies, including:
    • 75 Net Zero Naturally CO2 refrigeration systems for customers in food, seafood, cold storage and recreational industries
    • Cat 793F autonomous mining trucks that carry large payloads and use high-precision GPS, LiDAR and radar sensors to safely maneuver around personnel and light vehicles while employing all the expert braking and feathering techniques that take drivers years to master
    • Cat G3516H generators along with systems integration and regular maintenance services for Hamilton Health Sciences’ combined heat and power plant as part of the customer’s effort to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 50%
  • continued to support seven landfill gas-to-energy plants in our territories that use Toromont-supplied generators to capture harmful methane that is transformed into electricity
  • expanded CIMCO’s offerings to include a CIMCO Net Zero Naturally heat pump offering that is four times more efficient than gas boilers and conventional chillers