Efficiency in manufacturing is a major concern today due to limited resources, energy conservation and ever-increasing production speeds. In order to meet these challenges, lightweight tools offer promising advantages in production, since the materials required to build such tools are limited by optimisation approaches, the energy required for operation is reduced by saving weight, while the production output increases due to less accelerated masses. in the presented research, we define three different levels of lightweight tools and show examples from research and industrial production. It is shown qualitatively and quantitatively how lightweight tools help to conserve raw material resources, reduce energy consumption and increase manufacturing agility.