Global circularity has slipped to 6.9% which indicates industries are consuming resources faster than they can be recuperated. Efficient motor drives can help close this gap.
Anne Franzas · Global product manager — Circularity | ABB
Data from the most recent Circularity Gap Report underscores today’s environmental challenges and companies’ structural challenges. For the latter, long‑term competitiveness depends on the ability to design industrial assets that consume less, last longer, and preserve critical raw materials or CRMs upon which modern technologies rely.
For manufacturers and operators supplying or operating motor-driven automation, variable frequency drives or VFDs are long‑life infrastructure assets. Their service life and material efficiency directly shape energy consumption, uptime, and waste generation over decades of use.
That’s why the definition of premium in the context of VFDs must evolve beyond just purchase price and efficiency ratings to include durability, reliability, material-efficient design, and the ability to remain valuable throughout multiple life cycles.
Circularity is often misunderstood as an end‑of‑life consideration. But for industrial drives, it starts at the level of design, materials, and operating life. Preservation and efficient use of CRMs is now a central strategic priority, which means equipment must be designed with fewer dependencies, longer lifetimes, higher recoverability, and clearer traceability. For drive manufacturers, this means:
- Designing modular systems that decouple lifetime from individual components.
- Extending equipment’s operational lifetime, with more durable electronics, better cooling, and protection against harsh conditions.
- Reducing the use of scarce materials through smarter architecture, lightweighting, and recycled inputs.
- Ensuring valuable materials (such as rare earths, copper and other high‑performance electronic materials) can be reused or are recoverable at end of life.
So, reliability is an engineering target as well as a resource-conservation strategy.
Part of the approach includes the use of fewer materials. Every kilogram of avoided material and every kilowatt‑hour saved over a drive’s operating life contributes to the preservation of non-renewable materials and meeting climate goals. Recent redesigns from some suppliers show how modularity and lightweight construction can reduce overall material demand and boost installation flexibility.
The biggest circularity impact comes from energy efficiency. Globally, most industrial motors still run direct‑on‑line or DOL so operated at full speed regardless of actual load conditions and mechanically throttled. This is one of the largest untapped opportunities for industrial decarbonization. Speed control through drives can reduce a motor’s energy consumption by 25 to 70% and boost process yield, reduce wear on mechanical systems, and avoid unnecessary electricity use.
Increasing drive adoption rates is therefore one of the most effective ways to reduce total lifecycle material and energy consumption across industries.
Of course, efficiency ratings only tell part of the story. A truly premium drive performs reliably over the long term, delays replacement cycles, and minimizes downtime — reducing the pressure on critical raw material supply chains. This is the core of circular design.
VFDs must also remain relevant even as customer requirements, digital ecosystems, and regulatory expectations evolve. Modular, forward‑ and backward‑compatible architecture reduces the need for full replacements and keep CRM-intensive components in productive use.
Upgradable electronics and cooling modules along with firmware‑based performance enhancements extend usefulness without consuming new materials. Digital diagnostics prevent premature replacement and optimize maintenance schedules to avoid wasteful spare-parts usage of fixed service schedules.
When the time comes, materials and components from end‑of‑life units are reclaimed and reintroduced through takeback and remanufacturing programs. So, their technical and material value aren’t lost to waste streams.
So, how to rethink premium in the decade ahead? Industrial drives and motors convert more than 40% of global electricity into motion. Their ability to accelerate the green transition is enormous, but only if adoption increases in currently under‑automated DOL applications, and if the drives themselves are engineered for circular material flows. This is one way end users can boost performance and profitability while creating a leaner and cleaner industry.
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