August 29, 2025
Komatsu machines, infrastructure aid sustainability
VOL. 18: Komatsu Ltd.
Komatsu’s strong points
1.Recognized by CDP on the A lists in climate change and water security in 2024
2.Develops technologies for low fuel consumption, hybrid and electric vehicles, fuel cells and hydrogen engines
3.Focuses on hydrogen-related infrastructure and solutions driven by information and communications technology
4.Jointly develops machines for next-generation mining and promotes “smart” forestry
At the Super Taikyu Series Fuji 24 Hour Race, in which touring cars similar to commercially available cars are driven over a long distance at the Fuji International Speedway, one apparent misfit was attracting attention on May 30: a hydrogen-powered excavator.
The prototype from Komatsu Ltd., a major Japanese manufacturer of construction machinery, was powered by the same hydrogen fuel cell stack as Toyota Motor Corp.’s Mirai, generating electricity to drive the hydraulic excavator and the vehicle itself.
With no emissions apart from water and steam, the futuristic prototype is just one example of Komatsu’s efforts to contribute to decarbonizing our society.
Leading global industry
Komatsu makes hydraulic excavators, wheel loaders, bulldozers and large dump trucks used in mines. Its sales totaled ¥4.1 trillion ($28 billion) in fiscal 2024. With overseas business representing over 90% of its total sales, Komatsu is considered the second-largest construction equipment maker, after Caterpillar Inc. of the United States.
Komatsu is also known as an industry leader on sustainability.
This past February, the international nonprofit group CDP put Komatsu on its 2024 A lists in the categories of climate change and water security for the ninth and fifth years, respectively. Japan’s Sumitomo Heavy Industries Ltd. also was put on the A list in climate change in 2024, but Komatsu was the only construction machinery manufacturer that made the list in two categories.
In April 2021, Komatsu defined its corporate identity for its 100th anniversary, expressing “our purpose” as “Creating value through manufacturing and technology innovation to empower a sustainable future where people, businesses, and our planet thrive together.”
In the same year, it also formulated a basic policy to further promote sustainability and pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by reducing carbon dioxide emissions — including the difficult Scope 3 indirect emissions in its supply chain — to net zero by 2050.
Construction machinery typically burns large amounts of diesel fuel, thereby emitting greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide. Scope 3’s Category 11 emissions, from the use of products sold to its customers, accounts for as much as 87.4% of Komatsu’s emissions of greenhouse gases.
To reduce emissions to net zero, it is necessary to fundamentally change the construction machinery industry. And Komatsu is tackling this challenge with a comprehensive approach.
PHOTO: OSAMU INOUE
Improved fuel efficiency
“Unlike passenger cars, construction machinery comes in various sizes,” said Yoshie Ideura, the executive who heads Komatsu’s Sustainability Promotion Division. “The machinery is also driven by varied power sources: It may be hybrid or battery-powered. It may be powered by hydrogen fuel cells or a hydrogen engine. It may also be powered by cables. That’s why we are trying everything in a comprehensive manner.” (See the article in the box.)
In 2008, Komatsu launched the world’s first hybrid hydraulic excavator, the PC200-8. According to government statistics, hydraulic excavators account for about 75% of all construction machinery in Japan. Komatsu installed the system in a popular medium-size model. “It was a brave decision to begin with the best-selling model,” Ideura said.
The excavator has a unique mechanism that recovers and stores kinetic energy generated when decelerating the rotation of its body and then uses it to assist the engine when rotating again. This reduces fuel consumption by approximately 25% compared to the conventional diesel model. Komatsu’s lineup of hybrid hydraulic excavators has increased since then, and a total of 16 models, the largest number in Japan, have been certified as low-carbon construction machinery by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.
Komatsu also introduced hydraulic excavators powered solely by electricity. In December 2023, a total of seven models of battery-powered and tethered electric hydraulic excavators were certified for the first time under the transport ministry’s new “GX construction machinery certification program” (“GX” is short for “green transformation”).
Komatsu is also committed to improving fuel efficiency in conventional models. It has improved the energy efficiency of diesel engine-driven hydraulic excavators, as well as bulldozers and wheel loaders. Twenty-five Komatsu models have been selected by the transport ministry as “fuel efficiency standard-compliant construction machinery” for their superior efficiency.
Komatsu has a target of halving emissions of carbon dioxide from its construction, mining and forestry machinery from fiscal 2010 levels by 2030. It has made steady progress, already achieving a 22% reduction in 2023.
Furthermore, Komatsu has initiatives related to hydrogen.
Mobile hydrogen supply
Since May 2023, Komatsu has been testing the hydraulic excavators equipped with Toyota’s fuel-cell stacks. Toyota also supplies a high-pressure hydrogen tank. The electricity generated drives a hydraulic pump that provides power for rotating the body and traveling at speeds of up to 5.5 kilometers per hour. They are just the latest construction machines that combine the technological capabilities of the world’s largest automaker with Komatsu’s unique recovery mechanism.
At the same time, Komatsu is working on the development of mining trucks powered by hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engines. In February 2025, Komatsu began conducting proof-of-concept tests of a machine based on the HD785, a large dump truck with a maximum capacity of 92 tons that is Komatsu’s flagship model in mining machinery. It is the world’s first large dump truck equipped with a hydrogen combustion engine.
Komatsu has thus been involved in the development of technologies for fuel efficiency, as well as electric, hybrid, fuel cell and hydrogen engines. But its development efforts are not limited to just vehicles. Komatsu also focuses on factors affecting their actual usage, including refueling.
“Construction and mining machines are sometimes used in remote mountains. So if there’s no viable infrastructure, even if you bring the machinery to a site in such a location, you cannot use it,” said Takayuki Mamiya, general manager of the Environmental Affairs Department of Komatsu’s Sustainability Promotion Division. “Therefore, you need to consider the whole picture, not just vehicle development, in order to promote widespread use.”
Deep in the mountains, there are no charging stations or hydrogen stations for construction machinery. Facing this major challenge, Komatsu is working with Toyota to find a solution.
At Fuji Speedway, Komatsu and Toyota held a joint news conference and unveiled a mobile hydrogen refueling system that Toyota has proposed. Toyota Chief Technology Officer Hiroki Nakajima spoke about the idea of carrying hydrogen in Toyota Hilux pickup trucks to remote construction sites to refill fuel-cell equipment like hydraulic excavators. This would involve emissions of carbon dioxide from the pickups, but based on an estimate made for one customer, emissions that amount to 51 tons a year could be reduced to just 1 ton.
PHOTO: OSAMU INOUE
“Smart” construction
There are still other areas to which Komatsu pays attention. Among them, Mamiya said, the company is focusing on efficiently operating machinery on-site.
“For example, if you calculate a work process, you may be able to operate it in a shorter time,” Mamiya said. “Or you may be able to eliminate losses if you level the terrain of the mountain to secure a route. You can reduce CO2 emissions by optimizing operation management.”
These are attempts to contribute to sustainability through “soft” aspects rather than “hard” aspects such as vehicle or infrastructure development. These efforts go back many years.
In 2001, Komatsu made Komtrax, a GPS-based system for managing machine operations, a standard feature in its products. Revolutionary at the time, the system enables users to remotely monitor machine locations, operating hours, fuel consumption, failure history and other information. This lets Komatsu make proposals tailored to customers’ needs, including theft prevention, maintenance and more efficient operation plans. Naturally, these include support for reducing fuel consumption, thus reducing carbon emissions.
In 2013, the company launched the world’s first bulldozer equipped with a function to automatically control blades using position information, and in 2014 launched the world’s first hydraulic excavator equipped with a semiautomatic control function.
“It’s an epoch-making product for reducing CO2 emissions on construction sites,” Ideura said. “The ICT (information and communications technology) machine that automatically controls the track of a bulldozer and the cutting edge of its blade according to a drawing is amazing in and of itself, but what is revolutionary is the fact that it reliably improves fuel efficiency no matter who the operator is.” According to an estimate by Komatsu, the use of such machines reduced fuel consumption by about 25 to 30 percent in some cases.
In 2015, the foundation of Komtrax and ICT machines was upgraded to Smart Construction, which further expanded the scope of efficiency improvement. This combines ICT machines with current topography measurement using drones and 3D scanners to improve work efficiency and make processes visible. This has made it possible to see an entire construction project and work site and propose measures to improve efficiency throughout the entire process, from surveying to inspection. As it can not only reduce carbon emissions but also help solve labor shortages, the number of sites that use Smart Construction reached 49,223 globally as of the end of June 2025.
Reviving mountains
Komatsu believes solutions that address both “hard” and “soft” aspects are indispensable for reducing carbon emissions at client companies.
For this reason, Komatsu redefined its vision for itself as a “collaborative partner committed to optimizing safe, productive, and clean workplaces” in the three-year strategic growth plan it introduced this April, with the slogan “Driving value with ambition.”
The vision also reflects a desire to be a partner with client companies. Symbolic of this philosophy is the Komatsu Greenhouse Gas Alliance, launched in 2021. It is a framework for accelerating the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in mines in which the planning, development and testing of next-generation mining equipment are shared with 12 of the world’s leading mining companies, including Rio Tinto and BHP. The first target is the “power-agnostic truck.” Work is underway to develop an ultralarge dump truck that can operate on any power source, including batteries, fuel cells and hydrogen engines.
“It means not just delivering products. It means working with [customers] to develop them,” Ideura said. “We have held [promotional] events at a large trade show every year. We hope to expand the possibilities of this alliance through various initiatives this year.”
The current strategic growth plan calls for Komatsu to further evolve solutions such as Smart Construction and an autonomous haulage system.
Its forestry machinery business will be further strengthened as well. “In addition to conventional construction and mining, we’ve been also focusing on forestry recently,” Ideura said. “What I want to highlight here is [our effort for] forest revitalization. Forestry machines were originally used [only] to cut down trees and carry them out. However, instead of just cutting down trees, we are expanding our lineup of products with a focus on the entire cycle, from cutting trees carefully to preparing the land and efficiently planting new trees.”
This initiative is contributing to the digital transformation of forestry through Smart Forestry, a forestry version of Smart Construction using drones and other technologies.
These are all just some of the diverse ways in which Komatsu contributes to sustainability, always racing ahead to expand and evolve its efforts.
Sustainability-oriented since our founding
Yoshie Ideura
Executive officer and president of the Sustainability Promotion Division
This year marks the 104th anniversary of Komatsu Ltd.’s founding in 1921 in Komatsu, Ishikawa Prefecture. Our founder, Meitaro Takeuchi, was originally the owner of a copper mine outside Komatsu. The company was founded with the aim of creating machines to be used there, but there was another important intention.
That was the idea that even though the mine would eventually be depleted, the technological development and human resources that would make it possible would also bring sustainable development to the region.
Takeuchi established as founding principals “global expansion,” “quality first,” “technological innovation” and “human resource development.” This spirit has been passed down as the “Komatsu Way” to this day, and it was also intended to pass on sustainable value to future generations.
So, for Komatsu, sustainability is not a concept that appeared out of the blue. It has been part of our DNA since our founding more than 100 years ago and has been deeply rooted in our management approach and in our employees.
Komatsu has grown beyond the boundaries of its founding place to the level of doing business around the world. What we need to think about today is not only sustainable regional development but also sustainable development around the world. It is natural for our company to work for the sustainability of the natural environment and society, and it is our responsibility to do so.
Also, customers who use our products are now urged by society to take measures for sustainability. So, for the benefit of our customers as well, we must make efforts to develop products with low environmental impacts and promote their use.
In particular, our customers engaged in mining development are making demands that grow more stringent every year. Some join with us in developing sustainable products. Others want to use as little fuel as possible, due to cost considerations, and seek products with low fuel consumption.
We will remain committed to improving our technology and collaborating with our customers and stakeholders on measures to make construction sites safe, highly productive and clean. And we will collaborate with them to create new markets. My hope is that we will be able to contribute as much as possible to creating a future in which people, business and the planet thrive together.
次世代建機とインフラ整備全方位で貢献。
コマツは米キャタピラーに次ぐ世界2位の建機メーカーとしてグローバルで名を馳せる。同時に、建機業界ではサステナビリティ先進企業としても名高い。
2050年までにScope3も含めCO2排出を実質ゼロとするカーボンニュートラルへの挑戦も宣言。大量の軽油を燃料とする建機は、CO2を主とする温室効果ガス（GHG）を乗用車以上に吐き出す。コマツが排出するGHGのうち、Scope3の顧客による「製品使用（カテゴリ11）」はじつに87.4％も占めている。
ここを実質ゼロにするためには、抜本的に建機業界の構造を転換する必要がある。コマツは「全方位」の姿勢で、この難題に挑戦している。
低燃費化、電気、ハイブリッド、燃料電池、水素エンジン……。あらゆる可能性を求めるが、“全方位”はこれらの次世代機開発にとどまらない。
山奥の現場には建機向けの充電スタンドもなければ、水素ステーションもない。この大きな課題に対してもコマツは向き合い、一つの解を見出そうとしている。
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