Sustainability and battery sharing platforms
There are inherent sustainable aspects to battery sharing platforms – where a variety of tool brands use the same battery systems, packs and chargers – so Torque Magazine asked one of the biggest and engineering end-user focused Cordless Alliance System (CAS) for its views on the topic…
“The sustainability angle was there, right from the beginning,” Thomas Zeller, head of the CAS partner programme, tells Torque Magazine. “Bringing less batteries into the market is the best thing that you can do.”
For those not in the know, CAS (Cordless Alliance System) is a powerful battery pack system that allows different power tool brands to use the same batteries. Making the life of end users easier – you can use the same batteries and charger for a multitude of specialist engineering power tool brands – the system uses battery technology from Metabo, earned and developed over decades.
Less batteries = less resources >
Sharing battery technology, rather than every power tool brand having its own specific battery and charger systems, reduces the need for numerous new batteries to be produced and take up resources.
For power tool brands more famous for their specialist knowledge in their specialist area, say rivets or metal working, that also means they won’t have to also become experts in battery technology (and can avoid producing various iterations of their own batteries in search for an optimum battery product). Instead they can instantly rely on tried and tested enhanced battery tech from CAS and Metabo.
Recycling challenges >
So far, so sustainable. But there are opportunities to make CAS even more environmentally friendly, and work is underway exploring those developments, explains Zeller:
“We are also asking about recycling. There are already systems in place in the trade where they take the batteries back and then go to recycling, but they are not fully recycling the batteries yet.”
With complete battery recycling an area that is still in development, CAS is keen to be involved as early as possible: “We participated on a pilot project with one of the big chemical leaders of Germany and we want to be one of the first when it comes to battery recycling. But today, there is nothing in place with the scale.”
That’s partially due to the relative size of the power tool market, he adds, with sectors using greater numbers of batteries likely to lead the way: “Those companies which are looking to make a business in battery recycling need the volume, so we can follow them. At the moment it’s difficult, because the economy of scale is currently too low.”
Expanding the system >
While the recycling industry catches up with the increasing need for total battery recycling, CAS is working to grow the number of brands it works with and therefore help reduce the number of individual batteries and systems coming into the environment.
There’s more on the Cordless Alliance System in Torque Magazine’s November-December 2023 issue.