ExOne announces membership in AMGTA, showing importance of sustainability in 3D printing

ExOne announced last week that it has joined the Additive Manufacturer Green Trade Association (AMGTA) as a founding member. The AMGTA, a non-profit global trade group, is devoted to the promotion of the environmental benefits of additive manufacturing (AM). With this announcement, ExOne is showing its commitment to sustainability in the AM industry, promoting its benefits while also participating in research to prove and explore the environmental benefits of AM. Though sustainability can be a controversial topic in AM, groups like AMGTA are working to show the existing benefits of the process especially in comparison to more traditional manufacturing methods. ExOne joins a number of other leaders in the AM sector, including names such as EOS, GE Additive and Materialise who are are also founding or participating members of the AMGTA.

ExOne and sustainability

According to the ExOne Company, they joined the AMGTA as a founding member in order to support rigorous and independent research into the sustainability aspects of 3D printing. ExOne’s CEO, John Hartner, who will now serve on the AMGTA Board of Directors, stated “ExOne is excited to join with other manufacturing and technology companies through the AMGTA to support independent research into the sustainability aspects of 3D printing.”

ExOne considers itself to be more environmentally friendly than traditional manufacturing (photo credits: ExOne)

ExOne is known as a manufacturer of sand and metal binder jetting 3D printers, including the X1 series. Compared to traditional manufacturing, they believe that their binder setting method is a more sustainable method of manufacturing as it reduces waste to less than 5%, saves energy by consolidating many assembled parts and processes into one, and results in end-us products that are 30-40% lighter, resulting in more efficiency for cars, planes and military equipment. However, Hartner pointed to their customers as part of the reason why they chose to join the trade group, “While our team at ExOne is confident about the broad sustainability benefits of our binder jetting technology, our customers are eager to have independent data that demonstrates these benefits through the whole end-to-end life cycle.”