BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

CRAIG HAYMAN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AVEVA, ON HOW THE ACCELERATED PACE OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IS DRIVING SUSTAINABILITY ASPIRATIONS IN A NEW DECADE OF ACTION

This year marks a significant turning point for industries in a variety of sectors around the world. It’s the dawn of a new decade, and it began with the most significant global crisis in a generation. Yet, despite the apparent economic turbulence caused by the pandemic, businesses are more committed than ever to not only weathering the storm, but coming out of the other side with new-found aspirations to tackle the global issues of the day.

While 2020 will have been the most challenging year on record for most businesses, there is a silver lining. In an effort to adapt rapidly to the ever-changing ‘new normal’, companies accelerated their digital transformation strategies and, in doing so, threw open a world of possibility regarding their approach to climate change, circularity, renewables, and the transparency and traceability of supply chains.

From aspiration to action

In order to build a more sustainable world for everybody, each business must play its own part. The United Nations has dubbed this the ‘Decade of Action’, calling on businesses and governments worldwide to do their part to meet 17 different sustainability development goals by 2030. Over the last few years, we’ve begun to see this narrative sway industry leaders into a more sustainable-oriented approach. Indeed, the CEOs of 2023 or 2026 are going to be incredibly unpopular if they continue to perpetuate what some have referred to as a ‘deliberate delay’ tactic, with no sustainability agenda to speak of. With organisations like the UN working hard to raise awareness, and environmental issues now a top priority for the public, organisations are becoming far more aspirant with their sustainability ambitions. The next challenge lies in turning that aspiration into action, and that’s where technology comes in.

Uncovering hidden potential

As any business leader will confirm, in order for an organisation to outrank its competitors it must find new operational efficiencies. It does this through acquiring insight and streamlining its operations to save on things such as time and cost. But what if the parameters were to shift? Instead of gathering data with the intent to simply make things faster, what if organisations started collecting data to make things faster and more sustainable? By incorporating sustainability into its own KPI frameworks, businesses can begin to move the dial and have a material impact on the environment, as well as improving their bottom line. While sectors such as retail and fintech are already quite digitally mature and well versed in the use of data to drive optimisation, industrial organisations are really only scratching the surface.

For example, take National Grid UK. Through a combination of wind, solar and nuclear, the company is committed to providing affordable, low-carbon energy for its customers. These renewable sources delivered 49% of Britain’s electricity in 2019 compared to 43% generated by fossil fuels. Reliance on renewables could be higher, but National Grid faces the unique challenge of having to cope with a notoriously intermittent supply of wind and solar energy. It’s a delicate balancing act in which there’s a direct overlap between the business’ service and sustainability goals. When National Grid UK partnered with AVEVA, it gained access to technology that allowed it to process 1.2 million data points in real-time, allowing it to strike this balance more effectively. By optimising energy traffic in real-time, the company is able to better serve its customers while simultaneously decreasing its dependence on fossil fuels.

A decade of change

There’s no reason profit and principle can’t go hand-in-hand. As with the National Grid UK, it’s perfectly possible for businesses to expand and increase profits whilst also helping to drive the sustainability agenda. The UN Global Compact is a new initiative with this idea at its core. It’s the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative, and its purpose is to secure sustainability commitments from CEOs and other business leaders.

To date, more than 12,000 businesses from around the world, including AVEVA, have already joined the UN Global Compact to share and collaborate in the pursuit of a more sustainable future.