Strategic insights for sustainable operations: how to integrate sustainability into every aspect of your business.

Posted: August 05, 2024

The other day, I got to thinking about my personal carbon footprint. I went online and found a carbon footprint calculator. As I typed in data about everything from my home energy consumption to my travel tendencies, I had the chance to reflect on how sustainability is no longer merely a social responsibility but also a critical component of strategic planning in an uncertain world.

As I considered my carbon expenditure, I had to ask the same kind of questions that companies—which face growing pressure from stakeholders, regulatory bodies, and consumers to reduce carbon footprints—need to ask themselves:

• How can we reduce our carbon emissions without compromising productivity?
• What are the most impactful sustainability initiatives we can implement?
• How do we measure and manage the long-term environmental impact of our operations?

Strategic insights for sustainable operations

Just as I had to consider my habits to effectively plan sustainable future operations, companies also need to take a comprehensive approach to make their organizations sustainable. They need a comprehensive approach that integrates sustainability into every aspect of their operations. Here are some strategic insights to guide this journey:

1. Understand your environmental impact: Gaining a clear picture of your current environmental footprint is the first step. This involves not only tracking carbon emissions but also understanding how various operational activities contribute to this footprint. By having accurate data and insights, businesses can identify key areas for improvement.
2. Simulate and compare strategies: Not all sustainability initiatives are created equal. What works for one company may not be as effective for another. Businesses should simulate various scenarios to understand the long-term impacts and costs of each. For instance, reducing travel miles might lower emissions, but if it increases electricity consumption, the overall benefit may be offset. Simulations help in identifying the most balanced and effective approaches.
3. Make informed decisions with a long-term view: Strategic decision-making involves looking beyond immediate gains; businesses must consider the long-term sustainability of their actions. Investments in technologies such as predictive maintenance or energy-efficiency analytics may have upfront costs, but they often lead to significant savings and environmental benefits over time.
4. Align sustainability with business objectives: Sustainability should not be a standalone goal. It needs to be integrated into your broader business objectives, such as cost reduction, safety, operational efficiency, and compliance. By aligning sustainability initiatives with these objectives, businesses can create a cohesive strategy that drives overall performance.

Practical steps to enhance sustainability

1. Get full operational visibility: Without visibility into your real-time operations data, you may not be able to identify the true drivers of efficiency, sustainability, and profitability. Make sure your industrial data management solution gathers real-time data from every critical asset and process, even those functioning outside your primary control environment.
2. Optimize asset management: Effective asset management is crucial for sustainability. This includes implementing maintenance strategies that prolong assets’ lifespans and minimize their environmental impact.
3. Improve inventory management: Optimizing spare parts and inventory management can lead to significant reductions in waste and downtime. This not only improves operational efficiency but also contributes to sustainability by reducing the need for excessive manufacturing and storage.
4. Leverage data and technology: Digital transformation is a powerful enabler of sustainability. By leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies, businesses can gain deeper insights into their operations, predict and prevent failures, and implement more efficient and sustainable practices.

Embrace sustainability with the new release of AVEVA Asset Strategy Optimization

Luckily, you don’t have to manually input numbers to a generic carbon footprint calculator. We are excited to announce new functionality that optimizes asset strategies based on environmental impact. This new technology addresses a critical need for businesses aiming to reduce their carbon footprints. Here’s what you can expect:

• Measure and simulate CO₂ footprint: Gain insights into your current CO₂ footprint and simulate multiple strategies to calculate long-term CO₂ impacts.
• Identify improvement opportunities: Understand which actions will provide the highest CO₂ reduction, such as clustering activities or investing in predictive maintenance.

AVEVA Asset Strategy Optimization is unique in its ability to provide strategic insights into the benefits and consequences of sustainability decisions. The software offers maximum return on asset investment across the entire lifecycle by optimizing risk-based asset strategies aligned with company objectives.

Key Components of AVEVA Asset Strategy Optimization

• Reliability-centered maintenance (RCM): Prioritize asset strategies based on availability, cost reduction, safety, compliance, and sustainability.
• Root cause analysis (RCA): Utilize comprehensive incident logging, solution definitions, and prevention, achieving an average 1:30 ROI within a year.
• Simulation for optimization: Simulate asset strategies over their lifecycle to balance cost and risk and effect on sustainability effectively.
• Spare part optimization: Optimize inventory management, reducing downtime, stock cost, and environmental impact.
• AVEVA Asset Strategy Library (optional): Accelerate deployment by up to 90% with RCM-based equipment failure data and preventive maintenance templates for common asset types.