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How to move towards a more sustainable supply chain

Posted on August 26, 2022 by dishanth

Supply chain leaders are under pressure from all sides to become more sustainable, not just from board-level executives but also from customers and investors. In fact, research by Celonis and IBM found that more than half of Chief Supply Chain Officers (CSCOs) would be willing to sacrifice up to 5% of profit to become more sustainable.

One key way of improving sustainability is getting rid of process inefficiencies which create significant waste and increase unnecessary emissions. Excess stock or production waste is often the result of unclear processes, miscalculations, quality deficiencies, or capacity bottlenecks. The materials and products wasted in the process drive up costs and have a negative impact on a company’s carbon footprint. But it’s often the case that companies can’t even see hidden process problems.

Through data-powered process mining, it is possible to find and fix the hidden process problems that you don’t know you have and improve your sustainability performance.

The missing data

The sustainable procurement of materials is fundamental to achieving overall sustainability in the supply chain. Transparency with regard to the exact ecological and social impacts of suppliers is important. However, this is precisely where sufficient insight is often lacking or information is not always available in a timely manner.

Shipping delays at ports worldwide have wreaked havoc on global supply chains, with research suggesting that as little as 34% of container vessels arrived without any delay to their destination in February 2022. This statistic is only a glimpse of the huge inefficiencies in supply chain that lead to unnecessary carbon emissions and a negative environmental impact. As an example, 1.6 billion tonnes of food are wasted each year, contributing to roughly 8% of the world’s carbon emissions. 78% of this waste occurs before the food reaches the consumer due to inefficient supply chains, meaning food is actually perishing before it hits supermarket shelves. Businesses are therefore forced to order more food than is needed in order to account for the shortfall.

A common problem here is that decision-makers simply do not have the necessary information for climate-friendly route planning, and the amount of data is one of the biggest obstacles. What seems paradoxical at first glance has its roots in the increasing number of IT systems and applications as well as the virtually exploding mass of stored information. Whereas 25 years ago even larger companies worked with only a handful of different IT systems, today there are usually hundreds, often with numerous applications being used to support a single process. This complexity leads to breaks and inefficiencies in processes that cannot be detected, let alone fixed, with traditional methods.

At the same time, these weak points mean unnecessary consumption of resources and thus increased costs and avoidable CO2 emissions.

Why process mining works

This is exactly where process mining and execution management come in. Process mining works like an X-ray machine for internal procedures and can illuminate and subsequently optimise critical business processes. It does this by visualising the current state of internal operations, including all process variants on the basis of data. With valid, data-based insights across all procedures it is possible to break down silos and incorporate sustainability into every decision or measure. All processes and different data sources are taken into account. By bringing together data from all common IT systems, such as SAP, Oracle or Salesforce, and mapping it in its actual form, business processes become holistically understandable.

By applying process mining and the right execution management in this way, companies can shrink the time it takes to find a process problem from years to hours, and make great leaps and bounds in sustainability goals in a short span of time.

The path to sustainability

Making a business more sustainable actually has a positive effect on the bottom line. Some of the world’s leading companies measure the impact of inefficiencies within their supply chain processes in order to minimise resource waste. Process mining and execution management helps these companies find and realise opportunities to significantly optimise fuel consumption, yielding material, financial and environmental benefits.

Carbon commitments and sustainability goals are no longer seen as afterthoughts. Rather, they are fundamental aspects of a company’s overarching business strategy. As processes determine how businesses run, they enable operational and even systemic change. Once processes are analysed and improved with intelligence and data execution, it becomes possible to prioritise sustainability in every operational decision.

This continuous measurability is a crucial aspect for many companies in view of the increasingly strict regulatory requirements. To put it in a nutshell: AI-supported technologies and continuous follow-up are the prerequisites for a sustainability process that is ‘sustainable’ in the literal sense of the word.

Source Edie

Microsoft signs 10-year carbon removal deal with Climeworks

Posted on July 14, 2022 by dishanth

The tech giant first announced an intention to source carbon removal solutions from Climeworks in January 2021, a year after pledging to achieve carbon-negative operations and supply chains by 2030. To achieve this 2030 goal, Microsoft – which is already carbon-neutral in operations – intends to halve emissions this decade and invest to offset and remove more carbon than it emits annually.

This week, Climeworks confirmed that it has entered into a ten-year purchase agreement with Microsoft. The investment in the deal has not been disclosed at this stage, but Climeworks claims it is “one of the largest” in the DAC space and will support the removal of “tens of thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere”.

“Microsoft’s multi-year offtake agreement with Climeworks is an important step towards realizing the ‘net’ in net zero,” said Microsoft’s chief environmental officer Lucas Joppa. “Our experience in purchasing renewable energy shows that long-term agreements can provide an essential foundation for society’s race to scale new decarbonisation technologies.”

Pictured: Climeworks’ Orca DAC plant in Iceland. Image: Climeworks

Other corporate supporters of Climeworks include Ocado, Swiss RE, Audi, LGT and Stripe, the latter of which is spearheading a collaborative private sector commitment on scaling carbon capture technologies. Called ‘Frontier’, the collaboration is backed by $925m of commitments to purchase carbon removals using man-made technologies this decade.

Technology scale-up

Climeworks currently operates 17 DAC plants, including one, Orca, which is operating on a commercial basis. Orca came online in September 2021 and is based in Hellisheiði, Iceland. Its CO2 removal capacity is 4,000 tonnes per year.

Last month, Climeworks confirmed plans for its 18th and largest plant to date – Mammoth, also in the same Icelandic region. The plant is expected to begin operations in either late 2023 or early 2024. In the first instance, it will have a CO2 capture capacity of 36,000 tonnes per year. Climeworks is aiming to scale to two megatonnes of capacity by 2030, laying the foundations for scaling to a gigatonne of capture capacity by 2050.

Climeworks’ technology works by drawing air into a collector with a fan. Inside the collector, CO2 is filtered out. When the filter is full, the collector is closed and heated to release the CO2, ready for concentration and storage by storage partner Carbfix. The carbon associated with developing and operating the DAC facilities, Climeworks claims, is typically equivalent to 10% of the carbon that will be captured. This calculation considers the fact that the facilities are powered by renewable energy.

Microsoft’s Joppa has called DAC “a nascent but crucial industry” to achieve the halving of net global emissions by 2030 and bringing them to net-zero by 2050 – the levels recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for giving humanity the best chance to limit the global temperature increase to 1.5C.

Indeed, some climate scientists have concluded that large-scale carbon capture – whether man-made or nature-based – is needed at scale to avert the worst physical impacts of climate change due to historic and continuing emissions. The IPCC itself has stated that, by 2050, the world’s air-based carbon removal capacity should be 3-12 billion tonnes in a net-zero world.

However, as Joppa acknowledged, man-made systems are in their relative infancy commercially. Critics are concerned that they may not deliver their promised benefits and could be used as a means for businesses to avoid reducing their emissions in the first instance.

ETC report

In related news, the Energy Transitions Commission (ETC) has this week published a new report outlining its recommendations for scaling carbon capture, storage and utilisation (CCUS) technologies while ensuring that efforts around zero-carbon electricity and emissions reductions are not de-prioritised.

That report forecasts that, in 2050, the world will need 7-10 gigatonnes of CO2 capture. This is at the higher end of the levels recommended by the IPCC. Reaching this scale, the ETC argues, cannot be dependent on action in the mid or long-term – concerted efforts are needed this decade, with the backing of both public and private finance.

Overall, the ETC sees a “vital but limited” role for CCUS. Its report sets out how the carbon removals provided by these technologies should be prioritised for sectors which are hard to decarbonise, such as heavy industry, and should be scaled most rapidly in the sectors and locations where CCUS has an economic advantage over other decarbonisation solutions.

The ETC has been a vocal supporter of CCUS in recent years. In March, it released a separate report recommending that the global CCUS capacity reaches 3.5 billion tonnes annually by 2030.

Source Edie

How tech can enliven Japan’s energy market

Posted on July 14, 2022July 11, 2022 by dishanth

In the transition to a low-carbon world, the sun accounts for an increasing amount of energy produced and consumed. But the energy generated is difficult to regulate as it is dependent on the weather. That is why accurate weather forecasting tools are gaining more traction, as researchers want to know in advance, as closely as possible, the amount of solar energy supply going into their power systems.

In Japan, where the government targets to make renewable sources of energy account for up to 36 to 38 per cent of the power supply by 2030, new technologies supporting the renewables market have sprung up. One of them is Apollon, a solar power generation forecasting system developed by Kansai Electric Power (also known as Kanden), which is based in Osaka and is the largest privately-owned electric utility in Japan.

Apollon, an acronym that stands for areal solar power forecasting system using satellite imagery estimation, uses imagery from the Japanese weather satellite Himawari-8 to predict solar radiation levels, and hence energy supply in the Kansai region in Japan.

Kanden’s manager Naoki Katayama says that while figures for absolute cost-savings cannot be disclosed, “Apollon can save millions of dollars, depending on the commodity prices such as oil and gas”. “If you don’t have good forecasting of solar power generation,” he adds, “then you would have to make fossil fuel power stations stand by, possibly in a wasteful way.”

Mr Naoki Katayama, who is an alumnus of Hitachi Young Leaders’ Initiative (HYLI) in 2005, believes in investing in companies providing environmentally friendly solutions across national borders.

Accurate forecasting systems can help make energy marketplaces more competitive. Katayama explains: “If you have good forecasting systems like Apollon, you can trade your excess energy with others on P2P (peer-to-peer) markets more easily and economically. With a wider spread use of this technology, more and more independent and individual energy distributors will have access to the energy marketplace, and the market will become livelier and competitive.”

“If you have good forecasting systems like Apollon, you can trade your excess energy with others on P2P (peer-to-peer) markets more easily and economically. With a wider spread use of this technology, more and more independent and individual energy distributors will have access to the energy marketplace, and the market will become livelier and competitive.” – Naoki Katayama, manager, Kanden

Katayama is also in charge of the company’s corporate venture capital arm named K4 Ventures. K4 Ventures invests in firms developing low-carbon solutions, storage batteries, AI and so on, and its fund constitutes approximately 9 billion Japanese yen.

In this interview, Eco-Business chats with this industry stalwart, who was trained as a lawyer and is an alumnus of Hitachi Young Leaders’ Initiative (HYLI) in 2005, to learn more about his thoughts on ESG trends in the Asia-Pacific region as well as his experience at the youth development programme.

How has the Covid-19 pandemic spurred investments in ESG-related companies?

I speak in the context of “E”, for environment. As more people work from home, they become more incentivised to reduce their electricity bills, which can make them turn to sources of renewable energy, and take measures like installing rooftop solar panels. This could spur investment in companies whose products are related to the clean energy movement.

What do you see as the key trends in ESG investing in the Asia-Pacific?

I see ESG investments, especially environment-related ones, growing not only within a single country, but across nations in APAC. As far as global warming is concerned, countries are interrelated and affected by one another. I believe that as neighbours living in the APAC region, we will see more movements to invest in companies providing environmentally-friendly solutions across national borders.

Which country is taking the lead for ESG investments in APAC and why? Is Japan poised to be a trendsetter in this area?

Yes, it is. Japan should be one of the leaders because it has been dependent on imports from the rest of the world for natural resources such as oil and gas. Therefore, this country is very keen to develop low-carbon energy-related technology and solutions, especially as we’re currently facing a crisis in energy supply due to the current Russia-Ukraine situation.

Why did you develop Apollon? How did that change how energy is distributed, managed, traded and governed?

Kansai Electric developed Apollon with its subsidiary company Meteorological Engineering Center two years ago, because the technology had the potential to help increase the use of renewable energy in the APAC region. Thanks to this technology, people can get a better forecast of the amount of energy produced by solar power stations, including their rooftop solar panels, and adjust their usage of fossil fuel energy, which also leads to cost reduction in their electricity bills.

Moreover, improved forecasting will make it easier for them to trade excess energy with others, a process called peer-to-peer (P2P) trading. More of such P2P trading can be governed by smart contracts [programmes stored on a blockchain that runs when predetermined conditions are met]. This will help remove the burden on independent and individual energy distributors to make legal contracts by hand.

Can you tell us more about the concept of PEACE, and how your team at HYLI came up with it?

We came up with PEACE (Process for an East Asia Common Economy) to accelerate the integration of economies in East Asia. “Challenges and Opportunities of Asian Economic Integration” was one of the sub-themes at the 7th HYLI. As our team members were aware that East Asian countries faced the challenge of participating in the opportunities of free trade, we came up with a win-win mechanism that would establish a so-called “PEACE Fund” comprised of voluntary contributions from member-nations. These nations could receive incentives, including prioritising sub-contracting and preferential tariffs, from other member countries.

How does Apollon fit into your team’s vision of PEACE?

Apollon will possibly make such an integration of East Asian economies happen by supporting cross-border transactions of solar energy and/or its environmental values on a P2P basis among independent and individual energy distributors in the region who will benefit from its forecasting technology.

How was your experience at the Hitachi Young Leaders Initiative?

PEACE was originally developed for East Asia, but the idea could be widened for the entire APAC. Free trade can potentially happen in the context of exchanging environmental value or carbon credits among different industry players and individuals in the region. My experience at HYLI has enabled me to think more broadly.

It has also motivated me to stay peace-oriented in the real world. Through my discussion with my team members, I learnt to build win-win relationships among different players with conflicting interests across borders. Currently, I always try to keep in mind that my professional skill as attorney at law can be used to make peaceful relationships, especially after long and severe negotiations between different parties.

What advice would you give to youths who are interested in participating in HYLI?

With the Covid-19 pandemic, I imagine that students would have fewer opportunities to communicate with their peers from other countries. HYLI will be an excellent chance to discuss ideas with people from other backgrounds, and is a platform to create longstanding relationships.

Even though I participated in HYLI over 15 years ago, I’m still in communication with my batch mates! Some of my HYLI friends became my classmates at Columbia University in New York, and some even came to my wedding in Tokyo. Make the best use of your time together and get to really know people.

The theme for this year’s HYLI is Social Innovation in the New Normal. The event will be held from 18 to 21 July.

Source Eco Business

Solar energy that usually escapes Earth overnight can now be captured, say scientists

Posted on May 23, 2022 by dishanth

The world is one step closer to nighttime solar power after a breakthrough discovery by Australian scientists.

University of New South Wales (UNSW) scientists have found a way to ‘catch’ energy that flows out of the earth at night.

“This could mean being able to achieve the ultimate dream of renewable energy: power generation uninterrupted by the setting of the sun,” the researchers claim.

So how does this sci-fi technology work – and when will it hit the market?

How does nighttime solar power work?

Nighttime solar taps into a “large and unused spectrum of potential power,” the research team says.

Heat – which is a form of energy – flows from hot areas to cold areas.

Every day, the earth absorbs heat from the sun. At night, this heat escapes the earth in the form of infrared light, and is sucked out into the icy vacuum of space.

If it didn’t, the planet would quickly become far too hot to sustain life.

The UNSW ‘nighttime solar’ team was captured via infrared camera. Source: University of New South Wales

UNSW scientists use the catchily-named ‘thermoradiative diode’ – a type of semiconductor also used in night vision goggles – to capture the infrared radiation as it escapes earth.

They then convert the ‘captured’ power into electricity.

Both normal and nighttime solar depends on the flow of energy from hot to cold areas, explains Ned Ekins-Daukes, the teams’ lead researcher..

“[With normal solar power], the sun provides the hot source and a relatively cool solar panel on the Earth’s surface provides a cold absorber. This allows electricity to be produced,” he adds.

“[At night] it is now the Earth that is the comparatively warm body, with the vast void of space being extremely cold.

“By the same principles of thermodynamics, it is possible to generate electricity from this temperature difference too: the emission of infrared light into space.”

When will nighttime solar be widely available?

‘Nighttime solar’ power is still in the early stages of development.

The amount of energy produced by UNSW researchers was very small, roughly equivalent to 0.001 percent of a normal solar powered cell.

But given the right investment, the technology could one day generate around 10 percent of the power produced by a solar powered cell.

Other teams around the globe are also working hard to develop night solar. Stanford scientists are developing a different technique to ‘catch’ the earth’s radiant heat.

The concept has huge potential, claims Dr Michael Nielsen, co-author of the UNSW study.

“Even if the commercialisation of these technologies is still away down the road, being at the very beginning of an evolving idea is such an exciting place to be as a researcher,” he says.

“By leveraging our knowledge of how to design and optimise solar cells, and borrowing materials from the existing mid-infrared photodetector community, we hope for rapid progress towards delivering the dream of solar power at night.”

Source Euronews.green

Ricoh launches mini hydropower system for remote locations, usable with solar-plus-storage

Posted on March 28, 2022 by dishanth

The 1kW pico-hydro generation system can be used with factory drainage systems and irrigation canals. According to the manufacturer, it is made with 3D-printed sustainable materials based on recycled plastics and is able to generate electricity even with a small stream of water. Solar and storage may be linked to the system to ensure stable power supply.

Japanese multinational imaging and electronics company has launched a 1kW pico-hydro generation system that can be used with factory drainage systems and irrigation canals. Pico-hydro systems are all hydropower systems with a capacity of less than 5kW and are commonly used as a cheap and easy-to-deploy source of power in the world’s most inaccessible places.

“The system can also be used in combination with photovoltaics and batteries to ensure stable power supply, ” a spokesperson from the company told pv magazine. “Depending on the amount of electricity generated, it can be used for IoT devices such as sensors, lighting devices, and charging systems.”

Called 3D-Pico Hydro Generator System, the new product will be initially sold in the Japanese market. “Service validation will begin in Japan, and the system will gradually be offered globally to markets where it is needed,” the spokesperson further explained.

The system was tested at Ricoh’s Numazu Plant. Image: Ricoh

According to the manufacturer, the system is made with 3D-printed sustainable materials based on recycled plastics and is able to generate electricity even with a small stream of water.

It was tested at the company’s Numazu Plant. “In our demonstration experiment using factory wastewater from the Ricoh Numazu Plant, we confirmed the possibility of lighting a lamp and using it as a power source for a security camera for nine months,” the company said. “We are also considering using it as a power source for disaster prevention in combination with battery storage.”

“Ricoh is also planning to improve the system so that it can also be used in microgrids,” the company’s spokesperson concluded.

There are many factors that determine the feasibility of a mini-hydropower project. These include the amount of power available from the water flow, the turbine type, the capacity of electrical loads to be supplied, and the initial and operating costs.

During the past decades, Pico-hydropower systems have been used with success in countries such as Nepal, Vietnam, Laos and Peru, as a way to provide electricity to rural locations.

Source PV Magazine

Low-technology: why sustainability doesn’t have to depend on high-tech solutions

Posted on February 21, 2022 by dishanth

It’s a popular idea that the path to sustainability lies in high-tech solutions. By making everyday items like cars electric, and installing smart systems to monitor and reduce energy use, it seems we’ll still be able to enjoy the comforts to which we’ve become accustomed while doing our bit for the planet – a state known as “green growth”.

But the risks of this approach are becoming ever clearer. Many modern technologies use materials like copper, cobalt, lithium and rare earth elements. These metals are in devices like cell phones, televisions and motors. Not only is their supply finite, but large amounts of energy are required for their extraction and processing – producing significant emissions.

Plus, many of these devices are inherently difficult to recycle. This is because to make them, complex mixes of materials are created, often in very small quantities. It’s very expensive to collect and separate them for recycling.

Among others, these limitations have led some to question the high-tech direction our society is taking – and to develop a burgeoning interest in low-tech solutions. These solutions prioritise simplicity and durability, local manufacture, as well as traditional or ancient techniques.

What’s more, low-tech solutions often focus on conviviality. This involves encouraging social connections, for example through communal music or dance, rather than fostering the hyper-individualism encouraged by resource-hungry digital devices.

“Low-tech” does not mean a return to medieval ways of living. But it does demand more discernment in our choice of technologies – and consideration of their disadvantages.

Origins of low-tech

Critics have proclaimed the downsides of excessive technology for centuries, from 19th century Luddites to 20th century writers like Jacques Ellul and Lewis Mumford. But it was the western energy crisis in the 1970s that really popularised these ideas.

Low-tech emphasises efficiency and simplicity. CityHarvestNY/Wikimedia

British economist E.F. Schumacher’s 1973 book Small is Beautiful presented a powerful critique of modern technology and its depletion of resources like fossil fuels. Instead, Schumacher advocated for simplicity: locally affordable, efficient technologies (which he termed “intermediate” technologies), like small hydroelectricity devices used by rural communities.

Schumacher’s mantle has been taken up by a growing movement calling itself “low-tech”. Belgian writer Kris de Dekker’s online Low-Tech Magazine has been cataloguing low-tech solutions, such as windmills that use friction to heat buildings, since 2007. In particular, the magazine explores obsolete technologies that could still contribute to a sustainable society: like fruit walls used in the 1600s to create local, warm microclimates for growing Mediterranean fruits.

In the US, architect and academic Julia Watson’s book Lo-TEK (where TEK stands for Traditional Ecological Knowledge) explores traditional technologies from using reeds as building materials to creating wetlands for wastewater treatment.

And in France, engineer Philippe Bihouix’s realisation of technology’s drain on resources led to his prize-winning book The Age of Low Tech. First published in 2014, it describes what life in a low-tech world might be like, including radically cutting consumption.

Principles of low-tech include efficiency, durability and accessibility. Arthur Keller and Emilien Bournigal/Wikimedia

Bihouix presents seven “commandments” of the low-tech movement. Among others, these cover the need to balance a technology’s performance with its environmental impact, being cautious of automation (especially where employment is replaced by increased energy use), and reducing our demands on nature.

But the first principle of low-tech is its emphasis on sobriety: avoiding excessive or frivolous consumption, and being satisfied by less beautiful models with lower performance. As Bihouix writes:

A reduction in consumption could make it quickly possible to rediscover the many simple, poetic, philosophical joys of a revitalised natural world … while the reduction in stress and working time would make it possible to develop many cultural or leisure activities such as shows, theatre, music, gardening or yoga.

Ancient solutions

Crucially, we can apply low-tech principles to our daily lives now. For example, we can easily reduce energy demand from heating by using warm clothes and blankets. Food, if it’s packaged at all, can be bought and stored in reusable, recyclable packaging like glass.

Architecture offers multiple opportunities for low-tech approaches, especially if we learn from history. Using ancient windcatcher towers designed to allow external cool air to flow through rooms lets buildings be cooled using much less energy than air conditioning. And storing heat in stones, used by the Romans for underfloor heating, is being considered today as a means of dealing with the intermittency of renewable energy.

Windcatchers in Yazd, Iran, cool buildings using wind. Ms96/Wikimedia

Design and manufacture for sustainability emphasises reducing waste, often through avoiding mixing and contaminating materials. Simple materials like plain carbon steels, joined using removable fasteners, are easy to recycle and locally repair. Buses, trains and farm machinery using these steels, for example, can be much more readily refurbished or recycled than modern cars full of microelectronics and manufactured from sophisticated alloys.

In some places, the principles of low tech are already influencing urban design and industrial policy. Examples include “15-minute cities” where shops and other amenities are easily accessible to residents, using cargo bikes instead of cars or vans for deliveries, and encouraging repairable products through right-to-repair legislation in the EU and US.

Meanwhile, in Japan, there’s emerging interest in the reuse and recycling practices of the Edo period. From 1603 to 1867, the country was effectively closed to the outside world, with very limited access to raw materials. Therefore, extensive reuse and repair – even of things such as broken pottery or utensils with holes that we’d now regard as waste – became a way of life. Specialist repairers would mend or recycle everything from paper lanterns and books to shoes, pans, umbrellas and candles.

By following examples like these, we can make discerning technological choices a central part of our search for sustainable ways of living.

Source The Conversation

Ibstock green lights plans for ‘world’s first’ net zero brick factory

Posted on April 28, 2021April 28, 2021 by dishanth

Ibstock, a leading UK manufacturer of clay bricks and concrete products, has confirmed a major investment in a new pathfinder project designed to put it on track to deliver the world’s first net zero emission brick factory.A combination of rapidly reduced process emissions and greater thermal efficiency is expected to cut the carbon intensity of bricks produced at the Ibstock Atlas site in the West Midlands by 50 per cent. The efficiency improvements are to be coupled with on-site renewable electricity generation and renewable energy procurement, while the remaining emissions will be offset through investment emission reduction projects.

As such, the company said it expects the Atlas project to deliver net zero emissions for its direct Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions.

The investment, which was announced at the Group’s AGM Trading Update on Earth Day last Thursday, marks the next stage of the company’s well-documented sustainability journey.

The Atlas re-development will receive part of a £60m fund, which will also support substantial wider investments in the company’s West Midlands Aldridge plant.

“The Net Zero journey is one we share with our customers,” said Ibstock chief executive Joe Hudson.

“We have seen a transformational shift in attitudes from all of our key stakeholders; and there is a ‘sea-change’ in how our customers, and, in turn, their customers, view environmental issues. As the UK’s leading brick manufacturer we recognise that we have to adapt and respond – and this is reflected in our Sustainability Roadmap to 2025.

“We have been leading the way for some time within our sector, with our investments in new production capacity at our Throckley, Chesteron, Eclipse and Lodge Lane plants all reducing the carbon intensity of the manufacturing process, and as the recipients of multiple sustainability awards. However, we can do more, and we can go further. Our plan to invest in Atlas is at the heart of this.”

The company’s goal is to establish the Atlas project as one of the most operationally efficient brick factories in the world and an exemplar for the industry in terms of environmental performance.

Ibstock intends to markedly increase brick production to meet demand for greener bricks and support government objective’s to deliver new homes and infrastructure at scale. Once the development is complete, the Atlas factory will produce more than 100 million bricks per annum, more than doubling its previous capacity.

The company said the investment will also bring crucial benefits to the local economy in terms of employment, training, and opportunities for local suppliers with the project expected to both support the future of the brick factory and create highly-skilled local manufacturing and engineering jobs.

Source Business Green

How big data and open data can advance environmental sustainability

Posted on April 26, 2021April 26, 2021 by dishanth

The industrial revolution brought many advances, including improved living standards, for many (but not all) people around the globe. But it has also led to environmental degradation, and is responsible in part for the climate crisis we now find ourselves living in.

One potential contributor to solving this environmental crisis is the use of open environmental data, available to all, that can be analysed and used in ways that maximise sustainability. The only problem is that there are not, at present, global environmental open data resources – although many jurisdictions do have open data projects focused on the natural and built environments.

Open data and big data – the opportunities and challenges

Open data is just as it sounds: data sets collected by agencies that are made freely available to anyone that wants to use them. The Australian government has its own open data program available at data.gov.au. Data.gov.au has collected open data from all levels of government and all types of data. From an environment standpoint it covers everything from tree planting to garbage bin locations, collection schedules and contents.

It’s true this open data project doesn’t sound particularly sexy. But it’s the possibilities that this vast data resource opens up that are the most interesting aspects of the program. Suddenly, there’s information available about what’s happening in the local environment, all available in a format that is easily digestible by common data analytics programs.

The use cases for open data

Where governments can use open data is in developing policies designed to ensure better environmental regulation.

The potential for data collection is also limitless. It’s not just restricted to satellite data but is also open to everything from home weather stations, citizen activist activities like counting bird populations or tracking the growth of bush and forests, through to advanced “internet of things” sensors.

These IoT devices can capture just about any sort of data imaginable. Want to know how much sunlight fell on a particular field over a certain period of time? An IoT sensor can tell you.

This latest sensor technology offers real-time reporting of environmental data. And that data can be used to create open databases available for anyone to use.

Organisations can also use open data, and the IoT to track their own sustainability efforts. Miners, for example, can understand how much CO2 their operations are creating, and then use that data to create carbon offsets in a bid to meet net zero emissions – as many Australian organisations, including mining giants like BHP, have committed to.

A critical part of the open data movement, however, is the analytics associated with finding insights and answers about our environment.

The importance of analytics

Analytics works in two ways. First, it can derive insights into what has happened and why. But more importantly, it can also provide insights into what will happen, when it will happen, and what are the contributing factors for that particular outcome.

Business and government needs to use this open data, and analytics, to create new models around sustainability. That’s because until recently, the environment was treated as an externality – that is, something to be used (and abused) but which wasn’t factored into calculations about the bottom line.

With the shift towards sustainability, more and more companies are taking environmental inputs and outcomes into their ledger books, and calculating profit based on their environmental performance. These calculations are all powered by data, and the insights from advanced analytics.

Without data and analytics, we’re going to repeat the mistakes of the past when it comes to environmental issues. The tragedy of the commons is real, but by using open data sets, we can map a future where business, government and the environment are moving forward for the betterment of the earth – and humanity.

By Paul Leahy, Country Manager, ANZ, Qlik

Source Eco Voice

Sustainable Technology: The Best Examples of Implementation

Posted on October 18, 2020October 21, 2020 by dishanth

“Not a day passes for me without seeing the many ways in which digital technology can advance peace, human rights and sustainable development for all.”

António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations

The era of green tech is on the rise now, going neck and neck with an uptick of innovative digital transformation. The integration of both, however, has rarely been an option ever before. And only in recent years there has been explosive growth in attempting to combine digital technology and sustainability. That said, the main challenge of today’s business underlies in finding the balance between these two approaches.

On a large scale, every business involves digital processes in one form or another in order to meet the specific individual needs of an enterprise. Consequently, an overall digitalization provides a great opportunity for achieving sustainability goals.

What is digital sustainability?

Generally speaking, the concept is defined as a set of ecologically safe and stable factors and principles that refer to the long-term perspective for social and economic development. These initiatives are realized through a wide range of digital technology implementation.

Technically speaking, every digital business wants to make a difference so it is nowadays opting for becoming environmentally sustainable. On the other hand, a tremendous necessity to think about the future of the planet and humanity arises as far as the eye can reach. An already-changing climate, the overconsumption of nonrenewable natural resources, biodiversity losses, extensive deforestation, extreme natural disasters, massive carbon dioxide emission, poor air, and water quality are the real challenges that are impossible to face alone. Here is how sustainability can benefit a business.

How digital trends impact sustainable technology growth

For sure, all the popular tech trends like AI, ML, Internet of Things, Big Data, edge computing, robotic process automation, and others come to ease our lives. That is why average users as well as large-scale enterprises pursue these innovations and changes. For instance, artificial intelligence has been the key to complex data analysis and management aimed at sustainable decision making in such areas as climate change, air, and water security, biodiversity conservation, disaster resilience, etc.

The potential digital technology investments are estimated in billions of dollars annually, for example, experts from IDC predict that worldwide expenditure on AI systems alone is predicted to reach up to $79,2 billion by 2022.

Obviously, becoming sustainable today stands shoulder to shoulder with typical business aspects, like increasing revenues, reducing costs and providing positive customer experience.

Sustainable Technology: 10 steps going ahead of time

All countries are concerned about sustainable global actions and generate consistent strategies to fulfill the commitments of the Paris Agreement. The required steps should incorporate:

efficient natural resource consumption
mobilizing financial sources
the shift from fossil fuel toward perpetual energy
climate change risk mitigation
supply chain improvement
across-industry transformation, including IT
keeping the balance between the urban and rural economy
taking nature-oriented solutions
vulnerable groups and areas protection
minimizing emission and pollution levels

Presumably, the stakeholders of top worldwide companies feel their responsibility to provide and thus leverage from sustainable digital technology so ahead-of-time enterprises have already taken steps towards becoming clean and green.

5 great examples of sustainable technology implementation

Let’s have a closer look at some sustainable transformation examples and companies that successfully reap from clean technology.

Walmart, one of the biggest retail corporations represents multiple deployments of digital transformations that work to eliminate wastage and energy usage and to provide supply chain control. First of all, numerous built-in IoT sensors and shelf-scanning robots prove to be sustainable in terms of energy savings and customer experience. Also, Walmart is a successful e-retailer that provides efficient online services, like Mobile Express Returns and QR code scanning. It enables their customers to shop staying at home thus diminishes transport usage and CO2 emissions.Walmart is constantly developing innovative ideas that can be implemented not only within the retail branch. In 2018 the corporation patented the idea of a robobee – a self-manned drone for pollinating crops equipped with cameras and sensors. This tool also makes it possible to detect agricultural problems and get more sufficient control over the Walmart food supply chain that, consequently, minimizes food waste.

Patagonia is a sustainable clothing company with $800 million revenue that can boast with using organic materials, selling worn and recrafted outfits and organic provision. Also, the company provides worldwide fundraising through online banking and keeps an online blog The Cleanest Line where articles are dedicated to environmental crises and solutions. Being sustainably conscious, Patagonia has implemented a number of innovations in company management, such asrecycled construction materials with laminated coated windows that prevent overheating
solar panels with photosensors and motion detectors

LED lighting, new systems of heating, ventilation and air conditioning controlled by a smart grid

Moreover, the company has got an AI central workstation that automatically controls all operational systems from an indoor environment to outdoor irrigation. Bathrooms and toilets are equipped with water control sensors. Even the landscape and plants around the buildings are chosen and designed to diminish water usage. Workers are encouraged to use electric cars and get financial compensation for coming to work by bike or public transport.

Mega City of NEOM definitely deserves the name of a sustainability dream where all possible and impossible technologies merge to serve humanity. NEOM represents how far one can go with incredible imagination and substantial finance. The mindset of building a sustainable megacity was born in Saudi Arabia which is ready to invest $500 billion into digital innovations run with the help of renewable energy instead of fossil fuels.NEOM is positioned as a future home city and workplace for more than a million inhabitants from all over the world. The implementation of ambiguous digital transformations, like IoT and AL software, is to control environmental conditions within the megacity. For example, saving water, especially in limited desert surroundings, becomes accessible due to smart sensors for water management and rainwater collection. Moreover, in NEOM the average temperature is expected to be lower and the wind speed adapted if necessary. The project’s first results are expected in several years looming at the 2030 horizon.

Microsoft as one of the leading software providers moves towards reducing its environmental impact and at the same time helps other companies turn “green”. Noteworthy, Microsoft’s cloud computing has already empowered energy efficiency and material waste reduction. The increased accessibility of serverless and open-source software minimizes cooling processes, ventilation, and air conditioning in fewer data centers. Adding power management function to Microsoft products enabled smart energy consumption on end devices, like monitors and hard drives.Explore how Microsoft uses artificial intelligence to create a complete directory of US forests. As a result, we can better manage them for a sustainable future.

To achieve global sustainability goals, sustainability technology companies of all sizes should work cooperatively, like Microsoft and Ørsted. The latter is a well-known wind technology and bioenergy provider from Denmark. Their decision to unite enables both sides to successfully meet environmental challenges. Ørsted’s greatest striving is to build “an entirely green world” with a 100 % carbon-free energy supplement by 2025. The company is diminishing oil- and coal-based activity in favor of clean energy systems. Ørsted owns more than a thousand offshore wind turbines equipped with sensors that seamlessly generate valuable data. Microsoft advanced predictive analytics and AI technology is part of Ørsted’s digital strategy of sustainable data transformation for saving time and resources. In 2020, Ørsted was ranked as the most sustainable company in the world.

What’s next

There is hardly an organization that doesn’t realize the necessity of a sustainability approach. The worldwide decision-making entities, such as the World Health Organization or the UN, are deeply concerned about ecological problems and social inequality more than ever before. Immediate measures have to be made for global financial inclusion and political involvement. The price is high but is worth paying when human well-being is at stake.

By Valeriy Ilchenko, CEO of ByteAnt

Source: ByteAnt

Successful carbon removal depends on these 3 conditions.

Posted on December 16, 2019August 12, 2020 by dishanth

There is now more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than at any time in the past 400,000 years, with carbon dioxide levels exceeding an unprecedented 400 parts per million.

The pace of carbon emissions has become such a problem that even if we can meet the carbon reduction targets set out in the 2016 Paris Agreement, global temperatures will likely rise above 1.5˚C by 2030 – which will increase the risks and impacts of droughts, floods, extreme heat, and poverty for hundreds of millions of people.

Fortunately, growing international pressure over the past decade has led to the development of solutions for tackling our carbon emissions problem. One category of these solutions is known as negative emission technologies (NETs), which focus on removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

These carbon-removal solutions may be critical in our fight against climate change, but they need to meet certain conditions to effectively curb carbon emissions.

Ensuring long-term capture and storage of carbon removed

Professor Howard J. Herzog, Senior Research Engineer at the MIT Energy Initiative and leading expert on carbon capture and storage, says: “the best way to keep carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere is not putting it there in the first place”. There is truth in this when you consider how difficult it is recapturing and storing carbon dioxide for the long term, when it has already been emitted.

Nature provides the simplest carbon removal solution – planting more trees. This is an effective solution depending on how well the land is managed to protect from deforestation and natural disasters. If not protected, trees may only store carbon for hundreds of years, compared to the thousands of years needed to slow climate change.

Alternatively, technologists have found ways to burn biomass containing naturally recaptured carbon dioxide and use the energy released to pump the carbon dioxide underground for long-term storage. Known technically as Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), this technology is promising but requires suitable rock formations such as basalt and forsterite to react with the carbon dioxide to avoid leakage.

Carbon Upcycling Technologies, an innovative startup founded by Apoorv Sinha, is combining carbon dioxide with fine particles such as fly ash, graphite, talc and olivine to produce solid nanoparticles that can be used for a range of material solutions. In 2017, Carbon Upcycling Technologies used its nanoparticles to create a corrosion-resistant coating, locking carbon away and generating revenues in the process.

Reducing carbon removal costs and meeting carbon storage capacities

The cost and storage capacity limits of removing carbon differ depending on the solution. Planting trees is arguably the cheapest and most natural way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, but its storage capacity is limited by the available land and impacted by deforestation.

Similarly to how solar power requires sunshine, carbon removal solutions also require certain conditions to work effectively. If certain conditions are not met, the full carbon capture capacity of these technologies cannot be realized.

A 2017 Michigan study optimistically suggests that carbon removal solutions have the potential to mitigate 37 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year, where annual emissions are roughly 38 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year. However, even if this were the case, reaching this storage potential would require a portfolio of solutions with carbon capture costs lower than traditional storage or emissions. Technological solutions are making progress – but investment and time are still required to reduce carbon removal costs and to scale-up the adoption of these solutions.

A Swiss-company, Climeworks, has constructed a plant which extracts carbon dioxide directly from the air using a filter and chemical process, storing carbon dioxide as a concentrate. Technologies like these are known as Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS). Despite the novelty of this idea, Climeworks’ plant in Italy can only capture up to 150 tons of carbon dioxide per year from the atmosphere, equivalent to taking just 32 cars off the road. Combined with high capital and carbon removal costs, solutions like these alone are not sufficient.

Reducing the market and technology risks of carbon removal solutions

Most carbon removal solutions are still in development, and it may take years for them to commercialize. The pathway to commercialization requires large investments into research and development without guarantees of financial return. This may not fit the risk profiles of many traditional investors or funders, limiting the available funds for the development of new solutions.

Cyclotron Road, an early-stage funder and incubator, provides grant and investment capital to innovative hard-tech social enterprises. Robert Ethier, a former investment director for Cyclotron Road, says this capital is “to help them reduce market and technology risk [and] accelerate them to commercialization [by] leveraging programmes and partners”.

At an early stage, risk-tolerant patient capital, invested into the right social entrepreneurs and provided with the right business and industry support, is critical to speed up the development of carbon removal solutions. This means that funders with higher risk tolerance – such as incubators, accelerators, philanthropists, international agencies, governments, academic institutions and angel investors – have a critical role to play a in providing the capital needed to commercialize carbon removal technologies.

So what?

There is a growing portfolio of carbon removal technologies, including those gifted by nature. Although in different stages of development, carbon removal solutions have the potential to serve as a necessary defense against pending climate catastrophe, but cannot serve as an insurance policy for the carbon dioxide we are emitting, and will emit.

Carbon removal technologies must be combined with other solutions and global efforts to reduce global carbon emissions. However, knowing that there are nascent solutions available should motivate the development, cost-reduction and scaling-up of these solutions. The future of the world depends on it.

Written by

Neil Yeoh, Global Shaper, New York II Hub

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.