At the AVEVA Sustainability Media Roundtable, Robert Opp, chief digital officer at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), hosted a panel of industry experts who discussed how businesses are changing their attitudes towards sustainability and the crucial new technologies that can help them achieve their green ambitions
The shift in sustainability focus
2021 was a disastrous year in so many aspects, and with the unprecedented levels of disruption there was an expectation that governments, industry leaders, investors and customers would slide on their environmental concerns to focus on the pressing issues at hand. Instead, as the panellists all noted with enthusiasm, green ambitions have been embraced even more rigorously.
Opp commented, “There were a number of shifts already in place before Covid, but since then we have seen a surge in sustainable approaches. We see the building back process starting, and we want to build back better but also greener.”
Olivier Blum, chief strategy and sustainability officer at Schneider Electric, whose company boasts a fifteen year commitment to green initiatives, added, “Over the last 12 months there has been a huge interest in sustainability. There is a strong global signal and all governments are pretty much aligned. Look at what the investors are doing – there is sustainability everywhere. People in society are looking for change; not just from the youngest generation but this entire eco system of governments and investors. How long will it take it is up for deliberation. But I am quite optimistic.”
David Metcalfe, CEO and founder of Verdantix, echoed these sentiments and said, “There has been a huge change in the financial markets. Lots of actors in the market are pushing forward the ESG agenda. There is no doubt there has been a sea change in thinking of the financial sector. What has encouraged me is that compared to previous financial crises, when environmental concerns were pushed down the agenda, with Covid they have been raised up.
“Passive sustainability was the default position in 2010’s. Nothing wrong with it, but it is just what most companies were doing. They realised they had to do something, but it was not prioritised. Now we are starting to see a shift change. The 2020’s will be fundamentally different to the 2010’s in terms of sustainability.”
Data as the key to driving sustainability
The critical role of data in achieving sustainability objectives was one of the themes highlighted by the panel. Prakah Kumar Karunakaran, head of NervCentre at Petronas, disclosed how their head of climate change came out with mathematical model that identified the key steps to achieving their net zero by 2050 target. These were monitoring green house gas (GHG) emissions, to see how this can be reduced; look at carbon capture; put a small cap on carbon offsets; optimise efficiency; and embrace the energy transition by taking sources like coal out of the system, replacing them with LNG and eventually resources like hydrogen.
Karunakaran said, “It all starts with data. One of the things we will make sure is that we have all the measurements of everything we are putting into the atmosphere, with things like venting. A lot of this you just don’t have data for, so you need models for them. This is where big data analytics come in to build those models. We have found this to be really effective when compared against actual measurements.”
Craig Hayman, CEO of AVEVA, has targeted several of the UN sustainability goals as his company seeks to go green and agreed with Karanukaran that data is crucial for this but noted this comes with its own challenges. He said, “Technically what happens is instead of data used in one system, it is in all kinds of different systems for whatever reasons and is in all sorts of forms. It is not realistic to say you can magically coalesce all into one system.”
“However advancements in things like AI and cloud capability will help to bring this data together and allow operators to understand the data, and predict what is going to happen. For the first time, we can now start to do that in the industrial sectors.”
Opp added, “There is a breathtaking use of digital technologies coming out. The use of AI, data analytics, cloud are powering new efficiencies and allowing companies to power others. It is incredible and I think if we look at how digital technology is evolving and the pace it is accelerating it will be amazing to see what happens in the next few years and how digitalisation can increase sustainable approaches.”
Opp concluded the session by sharing his joy that, over the last 12 months especially, sustainability has been shifted to the core of business models and that new technology is being utilised so imaginatively to encourage attainment of these targets. But he was keen to point out that the benefits of new technology only present an opportunity if you are on the right side of the digital divide, and, with 70 million people joining the ranks of poverty in the wake of Covid-19, the rebuilding process must be completed not only with sustainability in mind, but also ensuring that nobody gets left behind.
