FUCHS and BASF’s global business unit Fuel and Lubricant Solutions have established a strong case for a holistic real fact-based sustainability assessment of lubricants-hydraulic fluids with recent Eco-Efficiency Analysis (EEA) for different mineral oil based hydraulic fluids.
Contrary to the currently dominant cradle-to-gate approach, which only assesses a partial product life cycle until a product has been manufactured, the evaluation of different hydraulic fluids was conducted employing a cradle-to-grave approach when assessing the environmental and economic aspects of the involved products in their full life cycle from sourcing of the raw materials, over production, their use phase and the disposal.
Holistically considering the products’ full life cycle around the usage in a crawler excavator, the findings of the EEA study clearly indicated the lower environmental impact and lower overall cost especially in use of the studied premium HVLP fluid (high performance multigrade hydraulic oil) versus standard HLP fluid (monograde hydraulic oil).
This advantage is mainly based on an improved diesel fuel economy throughout the use phase – primarily due to improved volumetric fluid efficiency lower friction and lower fluid mass circulation ratio – which clearly overcompensates a slightly higher environmental footprint of these products in the cradle-to-gate phase. The improved fuel economy was enabled mainly through the
higher hydraulic fluid efficiency of the specific fully formulated multigrade hydraulic oils.
Press Release Courtesy of BASF.