Factory Resource and Energy Efficiency through Digitalization (FREED)

Research Project, 2021

For Swedish automotive companies to prosper in the long term, they must demonstrate contribution to sustainable development. In addition, the digital transformation of industry presents new opportunities to unlock new ways to measure complex systems’ performance and systematically improve towards circular economy and sustainability. The FREED project aims to develop a practical toolkit to implement environmental sustainability concepts at factory level. This will be done through pilots and scale-up activities at Autoliv and Volvo using data-driven methods to monitor performance and identify improvements from a life cycle perspective. In doing so, FREED will reconcile the goals of sustainability with the on-going digitalization trend in manufacturing. The lessons learnt from the project will be shared with the wider community of researchers and practitioners to achieve impact at the scale required for a more sustainable industry and, ultimately, a more sustainable society.