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Climate: Innovative solutions to cut carbon

KONE’s sustainability efforts focus on radically cutting carbon from our own operations and helping our customers to decarbonize.
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Shift towards energy efficient cities

 

The built environment accounts for approximately 40% of global carbon emissions. As cities expand and climate targets grow more ambitious, the demand for sustainable solutions is greater than ever. Reducing emissions requires a holistic approach that takes into account every stage of a building’s lifecycle – from construction and operation to modernization and end-of-life recycling.

 

At KONE, we see this as an opportunity to make a real difference. By improving the energy and material efficiency of our products, and embracing circularity for example through our modernization services, we help our customers reduce emissions at every stage of their building’s lifecycle – whether it’s a small residential structure, a skyscraper, or a major metro station. Our science-based climate targets guide our efforts, and we are committed to cutting emissions both from our own operations as well as from our products, which in turn also helps our customers to decarbonize.

 

The shift towards smarter, energy efficient cities is happening now. Together with our customers and suppliers, we’re pushing the boundaries of innovation to create new solutions to radically cut carbon.
 

KONE's climate targets

Integrating sustainability

Our actions

We focus on where it matters, sourcing low and no carbon steel, increasing the portion of recycled materials in our products, elevating energy efficiency through world-class solutions and designing for circularity.
  • Elevator shaft

    Energy efficiency

    Two-thirds of our carbon emissions are coming from the lifetime energy consumption of our equipment. This underlines the importance of continuing to improve the energy efficiency of our elevators and escalators.

     

    We have 23 elevator and 8 escalator models with the highest energy efficiency rating. Our world-class technologies, such as the regenerative drive and the KONE UltraRope® significantly reduce energy use. For example, our regenerative technology recovers up to 75% of an elevator’s energy consumption, returning the energy to the building grid. KONE UltraRope® can cut the energy consumption of a 500-meter elevator ride by up to 40% when compared to conventional technology.

  • City with a park

    Modernization

    Around 80% of the buildings today will still exist in 2050 (World Economic Forum, 2022), but most were not designed to meet the current decarbonization targets. This is why there is a growing need to modernize equipment with the newest technologies.

     

    Modernization is a growing part of our business and sustainable by nature: we are able to prolong equipment lifetime and reduce energy consumption by up to 70%. Through partial modernization, we extend product lifecycles by reusing components, reducing waste, and cutting embodied carbon emissions by up to 78% compared to full replacements.*

     

    *Calculations based on environmental product declaration (EPD), verified by third-party. A MonoSpace® upgrade was used in this calculation.

  • Fork lift , woman and man

    Material efficiency

    About one third of KONE's emissions come from materials and packaging used in our products. To drive down our material emissions, we are building a strong and sustainable supply chain. We have identified our suppliers responsible for about 80% of material-related emissions. Together with this group we for example, explore actively sources for less emission intensive steel and opportunities to increase the recycled content in the materials used for our products.

     

    As we provide our customers with reliable and energy-efficient equipment that has a lifetime of over 25 years, we have an important role in keeping resources in valuable use for as long as possible. We aim to extend the lifetime of our equipment through service and modernization including intelligent KONE 24/7 Connect and predictive maintenance.

  • KONE technician working

    Circularity that improves building performance

    At KONE, circularity starts with how we keep our customers’ equipment performing over time. With a large global installed base, deep service expertise, and strong modernization capabilities, we help customers extend the life of elevators and escalators while keeping people flow safe, reliable, and energy efficient.

     

    For building owners, this means less unplanned downtime, better control of lifecycle costs, and more flexibility to upgrade equipment in stages causing minimal disruption to daily life or their business. In practice, circularity can mean repairing before replacing, refurbishing, upgrading only the components that matter most, and supporting longer equipment life with service expertise and spare parts availability. The result is better building performance today and tomorrow — while reducing the need for new materials over time.

  • Woman and man with a KONE car

    Low-emission operations

    Less than 1% of our emissions come from our own operations, of which the major contributor is our vehicle fleet. We're transitioning to zero and low-emission vehicles. We are also cutting emissions through renewable energy and efficiency at our manufacturing sites. 

     

    By 2025, KONE reached 99.6% share in renewable electricity, and since early 2023 all our manufacturing units have used 100% renewable electricity. By the end of 2025, our ten global facilities achieved an 86% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions compared to 2018.

  • Woman technician

    End-of-life recycling

    We ensure that old materials and components are properly recycled, with 90% of the metals used in our products being recoverable.

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Our progress

 

Our clear approach and concrete actions are already making a meaningful impact.

 

In 2025:

 

  • Emissions from our own operations reduced by 30% and product-related emissions per product ordered reduced by 22.6%, compared to a 2018 baseline.
  • Emissions from materials sourced decreased by 10% compared to 2024, as we systematically engaged with key suppliers covering 80% of our material-related emissions.
  • Emissions from the lifetime energy use of our products reduced by 17%, compared to 2024. Our remarkable increase in the share of regenerative drives, from around 30% to almost 65%, in our elevators enabled the decrease.
  • We reached a 99.6% share in renewable electricity in our own operations.
  • We introduced Impact Revenue tracking, to understand the share of KONE’s total revenue generated from products, services, and operations that contribute to climate change mitigation. We aim to increase this figure continuously.
  • We launched our KONE Renaissance program, a five-year research, development, and innovation initiative that aims to renew existing buildings by developing adaptable, digitalized and low-carbon solutions in collaboration with our ecosystem partners.
KONE's greenhouse gas emissions from own operations

Greenhouse gas emissions from our own operations (scope 1&2)

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    Environmental Policy Statement

    Our environmental ambition and objectives.

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    Environmental Product Declarations

    KONE's environmental sustainability covers the full lifecycle of our products from design and manufacturing to installation, maintenance, modernization, and end of life treatment.

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