Sustainability Magazine - May 2023

SUSTAINABLE FASHION BRANDS OF 2023

META: FUTURE PROOF I NG D I VERS I TY

CAN XAAS ADOPTION HELP SAVE THE PLANET?

HOW AI & IOT ARE SHAPING SUSTAINABLE SMART CITIES FUTURE OF WORK: WILL WE ACHIEVE WORKPLACE EQUITY?

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EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

LUCY BUCHHOLZ

CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER

SCOTT BIRCH

MANAGING EDITOR

NEIL PERRY

PROOFREADER

JESS GIBSON

CHIEF DESIGN OFFICER

MATT JOHNSON

HEAD OF DESIGN

ANDY WOOLLACOTT

LEAD DESIGNER

MIMI GUNN

The Sustainability Team

FEATURE DESIGNERS

MIMI GUNN

SOPHIE-ANN PINNELL

HECTOR PENROSE

SAM HUBBARD

REBEKAH BIRLESON

ADVERT DESIGNERS

JORDAN WOOD

CALLUM HOOD

DANILO CARDOSO

VIDEO PRODUCTION MANAGER

KIERAN WAITE

SENIOR VIDEOGRAPHER

HUDSON MELDRUM

DIGITAL VIDEO PRODUCERS

MARTA EUGENIO

ERNEST DE NEVE

THOMAS EASTERFORD

DREW HARDMAN

JOSEPH HANNA

SALLY MOUSTAFA

JINGXI WANG

PRODUCTION DIRECTORS

GEORGIA ALLEN

DANIELA KIANICKOVÁ

PRODUCTION MANAGERS

JANE ARNETA

MARIA GONZALEZ

CHARLIE KING

YEVHENIIA SUBBOTINA

MARKETING MANAGER

LAUREN ALICE TYE

PROJECT DIRECTORS

TOM LIVERMORE

MEDIA SALES DIRECTOR

CHARLIE MCGILL

MANAGING DIRECTOR

LEWIS VAUGHAN

CEO

GLEN WHITE

SUSTAINABLE MENTALITY TOUCHING EVERY PART OF OUR INDUSTRIES AND OUR LIVES

The drive for a more sustainable future has become an essential part of smart, strategic decision-making in every industry and every part of our lifestyle

It’s only when you stop and take stock of progress across all forms of business do you really see how the march towards more sustainable practice has left fingerprints of progress across every sector.

In this issue, it’s clear how smart decision makers have it embedded into their thought processes like a watermark or a hologram on a bank note. This progress covers the future of workplaces and equality, how everything-as-aservice can save the planet, and how smart tech is revolutionising the green credentials of our lives.

We live in exciting times where everyone can make a difference, demonstrated by the groundbreaking High Seas Treaty that claimed headlines around the world – this issue is a celebration of that diversity of achievement.

LUCY BUCHHOLZ lucy.buchholz@bizclikmedia.com

“

This issue is a celebration of that diversity of achievement”

CONTENTS

UP FRONT

014 BIG PICTURE Greenpeace projects message onto UN HQ to “Protect The Oceans”

016 LIFE TIME ACHIEVEMENT

Musidora Jorgensen: Chief Sustainability Officer, Microsoft UK

022 FIVE MINS WITH George Kochanowski: CEO of Staxxon

CONTENTS

COMPANY REPORTS

028 META

Meta EMEA: Connecting communities through supplier diversity

054 IBM

Making sustainable finance a reality by 2030

082 HENKEL Henkel’s secret to success: amazing customer experience

116 CAPGEMINI INVENT

Capgemini Invent helps companies hit their sustainable goals

144 MCLAREN

Supply chain transformation in the fast lane

172 GLOBAL SWITCH Global Switch London, a blueprint for a greener future

190 FARADAY FUTURE

The leader in luxury electric vehicles

028

054

082

BIG PICTURE

Greenpeace projects message onto UN HQ to “Protect The Oceans” New York, USA

Greenpeace USA activists projected a message reading “Protect The Oceans” onto the United Nations HQ building to send a message to delegates at the UN in New York during the second week of the resumed IGC5 negotiations.

Nations reached a historic agreement to protect the world’s oceans after more than a decade of talks. The High Seas Treaty has the aim of putting nearly a third of the seas into protection by 2030 to protect wildlife from overfishing, climate change, and shipping traffic.

MUSIDORA JOR GENSEN

CHIEF SUSTAINABILITY

OFFICER, MICROSOFT UK

Microsoft’s Musidora Jorgensen

encouraging more women to enter the

n January 2023, Microsoft appointed Musidora Jorgensen as the UK’s Chief Sustainability Officer, cementing herself as a trailblazing woman in the sustainability sector.

Jorgensen has emerged as a leader who strongly believes that businesses have the potential to make a positive impact on the world, understanding that unlocking and supporting individuals to reach their full potential is crucial for collective success.

One of the most influential women in technology

For more than 20 years, Jorgensen has been leading teams within the IT industry, and was consequently dubbed as one of the most influential women in technology in 2021 by Computer Weekly. Before taking the role at Microsoft, Jorgensen said: “It is such an important agenda at a critical point in time for the world and there is enormous opportunity for Microsoft, our customers and partners”.

Throughout her career, Jorgensen has gained invaluable experience within the UK enterprise private and public sectors, undertaking leadership

roles at some of the world’s largest telecoms and technology companies, including Oracle, HP, and most recently, Salesforce.

Jorgensen spent three years at Salesforce, rising from Regional Vice President to Area Vice President and Head of UK Energy and Utilities, where she led the firm’s energy and utilities business in the UK across commercial and enterprise markets and delivered double-digit growth. She worked closely with customers to help digitally transform their businesses to enable them to gain greater insights into their own customers.

Before joining Salesforce, Musidora had a tenure of almost five years at Oracle where she led sales efforts for human capital management in the telco, media, and utilities industries. During her time at Oracle, she also held sales leadership positions in the consulting division, managing both the UK public and commercial sectors.

“It is such an important agenda at a critical point in time for the world and there is enormous opportunity for Microsoft, our customers and partners”

has led an incredibly successful career at some of the world’s largest tech companies, all while

space

MUSIDORA JORGENSEN

TITLE: CHIEF SUSTAINABILITY

OFFICER

COMPANY: MICROSOFT UK

INDUSTRY: TECHNOLOGY

LOCATION: LONDON, UK

How she got there: Musidora Jorgensen

After graduating from the University of Portsmouth with a degree in Psychology, Musidora Jorgensen started her career at BT Global Services as a Regional Account Manager.

From this role, she joined numerous other large tech companies, including HP as Client Principal, moving to Oracle, The Youth Group and Salesforce, before landing her current role at Microsoft.

Jorgensen joined Microsoft UK as the company’s Chief Sustainability Officer, as the tech giant ramps up action to become carbon negative by 2030.

Jorgensen is tasked with building upon Microsoft’s global commitments and driving progress and impact in the UK. She will be accountable for driving sustainability outcomes for Microsoft’s customers, partners as well as internally, Microsoft said in a statement.

During her time at Oracle, Musidora spent nearly seven years at HP as a client principal, where she was a top performer in the consulting division of HP Enterprise Group. In this role, she worked closely with Vodafone and BT Global Services, serving as both client and account manager.

Empowering women and mentoring Being a mum of three daughters, Musidora is a fierce advocate for diversity and inclusion in the workplace, with a particular passion for supporting and encouraging more women to join the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) industries.

She is an active mentor, coach and sponsor for women in male-dominated industries, primarily tech and sales.

“It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do,” Musidora explains. “Research has shown that

companies that invest in equality – such as diversity programmes and equal pay –and lead with values have a competitive advantage over those who do not.

“I spend a lot of time mentoring and supporting women coming up through our business, because one of the big elements of diversity and inclusion is ensuring that there are visible role models that people can see and aspire to be like. That’s a big lever – you can’t be what you can’t see.”

While working at Salesforce, Jorgensen served as a member of the UK leadership team for the company's internal working group, which aimed to foster more inclusive hiring practices. She was an

“ I spend a lot of time mentoring and supporting women coming up through our business, because one of the big elements of diversity and inclusion is ensuring that there are visible role models”

Council Co-Leader Alex Nicoll with Musidora Jorgensen, upon signing a high-level agreement with technology corporation Microsoft to formalise a working relationship to transform public services in the city of Aberdeen.

© Aberdeen City Council

active ally and speaker for the Salesforce Women's Network, promoting gender diversity within the organisation.

Jorgensen has also shared her insights on gender diversity as a keynote speaker at various events, including the Women in Sales Conference, the PwC Women's Network, and the Gamechangers Women's Network at the House of Commons. In addition, she volunteers her time as a mentor to final year STEM students at the University of Greenwich.

For her efforts towards promoting workforce diversity, Jorgensen has earned a number of accolades, including ranking second in the Top 100 Women in Sustainability 2023 and winning the Best Sales Mentor award at the EMEA Women in Sales Awards in 2018. In addition, Jorgensen was recognised as one of the top 100 female future leaders in 2020 by INvolve and Yahoo Finance UK and was also included in Kindness & Leadership's Rising Star list for 2020.

Sustainable Transformation | Musidora Jorgensen - Microsoft

GEORGE KOCHANOWSKI, CEO OF STAXXON

Empty shipping containers clog ports, slowing supply chains and pumping out carbon. George Kochanowski may just have a sustainable solution…

Q. TELL US A LITTLE OF YOUR PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND

» I received a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, and some graduate studies in Business at Northwestern University.

As the inventor of all-plastic, retroreflective traffic signage, I received Plastic Product of the Year in 1998. As Manager of Process Control for GE Plastics, I also received a leadership award for state-of-the-art computer control systems and networks at GE’s Alabama facility.

I’ve held senior corporate leadership positions with public and private companies, ranging from electromagnetics to advanced composite materials.

Q. WHAT DOES STAXXON DO?

» We design foldable intermodal shipping containers that exceed ISO and CSC standards, and the systems needed to fold them standing upright in bundles, safely and quickly. We are in the process of developing a network of fabricators in Europe and North America to produce our assemblies.

Q. WHAT CAUSES SO-CALLED ‘EMPTY RUNNING’?

» Empty containers clog roads and ship terminals, causing port congestion and leaving little space to unload ships. This then forces many ships to wait offshore, wasting resources and slowing the supply chain to a crawl.

The problem disappears only as the ships sail away.

Q. HOW SERIOUS IS THE EMPTY-RUNNING PROBLEM?

» Unfortunately, due to global importexport imbalances, the ‘empties’ – when delivered to terminals –cause port congestion.

This has a domino effect, as they need to be temporarily stored on their

“Empty containers have been having a negative financial and environmental impact for 50 years”

chassis at off-terminal storage facilities, reducing chassis availability. (A chassis is a trailer or undercarriage used to transport ocean containers by road). This ‘clogging up’ then starves exporters of empties, which are at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The environmental price is steep for each move, as each non-productive activity is handled by fossil-fueled equipment.

As we move into the post-pandemic era, where there will be less commerce – port productivity should increase. This increase will, however, come at a price, as the cost of labour and fuel have skyrocketed, under the propulsion of global inflation. Empties are more expensive to reposition than ever before, so it costs more to move nothing around.

Q. ARE SHIPPING CONTAINERS OUTDATED?

» The intermodal shipping container is 70 years old. Over the years it has been refined, but ownership costs have increased. For example, this year, the annual operating prices have ranged from $25,000 to $40,000 to reposition an empty container. Those costs are primarily labour, fuel, and land-use, and all are increasing at the rate of inflation.

Q. HOW DOES YOUR SOLUTION HELP?

» For 50 years, the repositioning of empty containers has had a negative financial effect and a severe environmental impact.

During this time, the only method of folding was a technology whereby the end walls collapsed onto the floor.

“Our containers fold like an accordion, meaning they can be stacked anywhere on the ship”

Kochanowski pictured with vertical folding container

Unfortunately, the cost of ownership was too high, and many of the design limitations were not overcome. In the end, collapsible units drew little interest.

Staxxon approaches the problem differently. A Staxxon box folds like an accordion. We always keep the box upright even when folded. This offers the capability to stack the bundled sets anywhere on the ship.

Plus, you don’t have to wait for a set number of collapsed containers to be nested to meet required ISO dimensional standards, saving space at ports, reducing the need for offterminal temporary storage, and freeing up numerous chassis.

With the number of moves now minimised, there is a significant

reduction in the use of fossil fueled vehicles and pollution.

The goal of the Staxxon container is to create an ROI while reducing the environmental impact.

Q. WHO INSPIRES YOU?

» Early in my career, I had the benefit of working for GE Plastics when Jack Welch was running GE, and years later, I ran an advanced composites company for Dr Walt Robb, who was Welch’s close advisor and confidant when Robb was at GE. Although not without faults, these two were always inspiring to be around.

Q. BEST ADVICE EVER RECEIVED?

» The job doesn’t get done until the right people are on the job.

Innovators are paving the way for a more resilient, sustainable and efficient future. The rules have changed. It’s time for DISRUPTION.

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META EMEA: CONNECTING COMMUNITIES THROUGH SUPPLIER DIVERSITY

WRITTEN BY: ILKHAN OZSEVIM

PRODUCED BY:

Krystle Sands, head of supplier diversity for the EMEA region on Meta’s global mission to foster opportunities for diverse-owned companies

Meta’s mission is to give people the power to build community and to bring the world closer together.

According to Krystle Sands, Meta’s Head of Supplier Diversity for the EMEA region, this holds true for her team’s work as well. “When it comes to supplier diversity, Meta’s goal is to create opportunities for diverse-owned companies to do business with Meta, and the people and communities that Meta connects.”

This principle of ’connection’, acts as a sort of subtle double-entendre in Meta’s vision, since it simultaneously means bringing people together; and also empowering them to network through its technologies.

Supplier diversity at Meta is one of ambitious proportions, but it has already exceeded expectations both in terms of its reach and its impact.

In 2020, the company announced their public commitment to invest a minimum of US$1bn with diverse-owned suppliers and US$300mn with black-owned businesses.

“We surpassed that goal in 2021, with an amazing recorded spend of US$1.4bn globally with diverse-owned companies, and US$306mn with specifically blackowned businesses in the United States. And we’ve been focusing on continued progress, says Sands.”

2004

Year founded (then Facebook) 2021 Facebook became Meta Platforms, Inc

$116bn Revenue (USD)

10K+

Number of Employees

CEO Mark Zuckerberg

Such a level of growth and expansion is nothing short of incredible, and it speaks to both to how foundational DEI is at the company, as well as the unmistakable explosion in demand for such projects.

And as the demand accelerates, adept companies will move with the zeitgeist accordingly. But only the most visionary will have the wherewithal to actively stimulate that demand.

In keeping with this axiom, Sands says that Meta’s Global Supplier Diversity work has evolved quite dramatically over the last few years. Originally launched in 2016,

“Meta’s mission is to give people the power to build community and to bring the world closer together”

KRYSTLE SANDS HEAD OF SUPPLIER DIVERSITY FOR THE EMEA REGION, META

it has expanded across countries and regions ever since.

“In 2020, we launched our efforts in APAC, EMEA and LATAM, and the real focus was on making as big an impact for diverseowned businesses as possible,” she says.

Sands knows that one of the main reasons that Meta has been so impactful is because of the way that the company communicates concerning supplier diversity within the business.

“Everyone at Meta is a buyer,” she says. “We want Meta employees to be intentional in the way that they spend their budgets,

$1bn

In 2020, Meta announced their public commitment to invest a minimum of US$1bn with diverse-owned companies and US$300mn with black-owned businesses

$1.4bn

In 2021, Meta recorded a US$1.4bn spend with diverse-owned companies and a US$306mn with U.S. black-owned businesses, exceeding its annual goal

and I think that’s a big part of the reason why we’ve been one of the fastest growing supplier diversity programs in the whole world.”

Last year, Meta was inducted into the Billion Dollar Round Table (BDR). “It was an incredible achievement for the team globally, but we’ve still got more to do, and much more of an impact to make,” she says.

As an organisation with such weight, Meta is perfectly oriented to have a serious impact in supplier diversity on a global scale, and we can already see its influence.

Supplier diversity is the branch of DEI that particularly focuses on the economic aspect of the grand project; recognising that economic empowerment is closely tied to, and indivisible from social empowerment. In the end, it all goes back to first principles.

“Opportunities shouldn’t be based on historical systemic biases and supplier diversity really challenges that,” says Sands. “For me, that’s why it’s so important to hold companies to account in terms of how they spend their money; and consequently how they affect broader

Meta EMEA: Connecting communities through supplier diversity

society in the creation of generational wealth and socioeconomic change.”

There are still many people that labour under the false impression that only the largest players, and the largest suppliers in the world are really capable of bringing about any kind of meaningful change; and so ’why then should the small players even play?’

Krystle Sands is not one of those people. She illuminates the situation for the fatalist and disaffected by saying: “Diverse suppliers have an enormous impact on their communities. They employ people; they pay rent; they bring massive value to our economies – economies which are primarily made up of small and diverse-owned businesses that exist to really drive us forward through their innovation, entrepreneurship –and the diverse perspectives that they bring.”

From this angle, supplier diversity is grass-roots, and it is in this recognition that Meta shines.

“Diverse suppliers have an enormous impact on their communities. They employ people; they pay rent; they bring massive value to our economies”

KRYSTLE SANDS HEAD OF SUPPLIER DIVERSITY FOR THE EMEA REGION, META

Meta’s S2P and supplier diversity journey

Meta’s source-to-pay organisation has been on an impressive transformational journey over the past few years. When Sands came aboard back in 2019, she joined a small global team who were set to expand. Since then, the team has expanded out on an international scale. They’ve grown in their tooling, their processes and their capability, all within a very short timeframe.

“We’re able to do this by building connections, by driving stakeholder engagement and by building an intuitive buying experience – all while streamlining our processes,” says Sands. “We’ve aligned our performance measures to north stars that embody source-to-pay’s commitment to our stakeholders. Supplier diversity sits within one of those North Stars and shines as part of our community pillar.”

“Opportunities shouldn’t be based on historical systemic biases and supplier diversity really challenges that business norm”

KRYSTLE SANDS HEAD OF SUPPLIER DIVERSITY FOR THE EMEA REGION, META

2016

Meta’s supplier diversity initiative was originally launched in 2016, and has expanded globally ever since.

Krystle Sands at the MSDUK 2022 Kowledge Forum

2020

In 2020, Meta expanded its supplier diversity efforts in APAC, EMEA,and LATAM, and the focus was on making as big an impact for diverse-owned businesses as possible

From European to global supplier diversity partnerships

To have a truly inclusive supply chain, Sands says that Meta needs to partner with suppliers that are not just based in the United Kingdom or the United States. There is another kind of ’united’ that Meta has in mind.

“Our supply chain needs to be where our customers are, and our stakeholders need to represent the communities that we work with. For this reason, collaborating with our advocacy partners to expand supplier diversity outside of the US and UK is a core priority for us.

“Further, we’ve been partnering with a number of organisations and two of the big partners that we are really focused on for 2023 are the European Supplier Diversity Project and the Global Supplier Diversity Alliance.”

“Our supply chain needs to be where our customers are, and our stakeholders need to represent the communities that we work with”

KRYSTLE SANDS HEAD OF SUPPLIER DIVERSITY FOR THE EMEA REGION, META

Supplier Diversity: European, Global

The European Supplier Diversity Project started as a way to help ethnic minority businesses in Europe to do business with corporates like Meta. Their objective is to expand certification to six new markets in Europe, and Meta is a founding member of that programme.

“The Global Supplier Diversity Alliance on the other hand, will act as a governing body laying out a framework for country and regional supplier diversity initiatives. They will be investing in world class research into the business case for supplier diversity at country and regional levels, and will support other advocacy bodies to grow their certification programmes.”

Through the web of these programmes, and fittingly, the interconnectivity that they represent, we can see the network of Meta’s supplier diversity initiatives steadily expanding across the globe.

Orienting Meta’s supplier-diversity initiatives Sands says that for 2023, Meta will continue to provide opportunities and increase spend with diverse-owned businesses. “We’ll be looking at our tooling and using data-driven decision making to build on them to ensure that stakeholders can make well-informed buying decisions.

“We’ll also be prioritising our external corporate relationships to share best practices and collaborate as part of a wider community.”

“Diverse suppliers have an enormous impact on their communities. They employ people; they pay rent; they bring massive value to our economies”

KRYSTLE SANDS HEAD OF SUPPLIER DIVERSITY FOR THE EMEA REGION, META

Just as Meta is aiming to connect and forge communities between diverse suppliers, we feel that Meta remaining connected to other companies and developing wider corporate communities is an inevitable part of the process.

Supplier Readiness and Champions Sands says: “Two of the internal programmes that I’m really excited about in particular for this year are our Supplier Readiness Programme and our Champions Programme.

“The Supplier Readiness Programme will look at how we can support diverse businesses in becoming ready to work with companies like Meta, through the training, information and guidance we can provide so that they can be successful.

“The Champions program is a broader program looking internally at how we can increase advocacy and adoption of supplier diversity by our employees, and really create a community of champions to support the cause.”

META

Stronger, together

I ask Sands about her visions and hopes as head of supplier diversity for the EMEA region, and she doesn’t flinch.

“I hope to see more cross collaboration with corporates and advocacy partners.

“We can create a lot of positive change by sharing best practices and helping other companies to start their own supplier diversity journeys.”

Meta’s supplier diversity initiative seeks to further expand into Europe over the next few years.

“When we look at supplier diversity,” she says, “the UK is behind the US, but actually, Europe lags behind the UK.

“With the work that MSDUK are doing in the European Supplier Diversity Project; and that which WeConnect International are doing in broadening their scope, we’ll see more European companies start to create their own supplier diversity programmes which will be incredibly impactful.

“I hope to see more transparency around how we’re measuring supplier diversity; what we are measuring; how we’re measuring, and what the standards are by which we’re measuring supplier diversity and success.”

If credibility is to be achieved, and real change is to be brought about in the world,

quantifiable KPIs must be ushered in. More hope, less faith.

Sands predicts that there will be a fundamental change in the way that the economic impact from supplier diversity is measured, and in conclusion, asserts the formula that sits in essential poise at the human heart of supplier diversity as a principle – she says: “We can go further and faster, if we go together.”

SURGE IN XAAS ADOPTION CAN HELP SAVE THE PLANET

As organisations continue their rush to the cloud, the XaaS model continues to grow – with the global market to hit US$1tn by the end of the decade

WRITTEN BY: MARCUS LAW

From robotics to mobility solutions and even jet engines, Everything-asa-Service (XaaS) models have become increasingly prevalent. And, with cloudbased ‘as-a-service’ models fuelling growth for businesses globally, the trend shows no sign of stopping.

A collective phrase for the provision of any good or service, XaaS includes all of the many services, tools, and technology that manufacturers offer to consumers. The model – paid for in a flexible consumption model rather than in the form of an upfront purchase or licence – has a range of benefits, whether improving the expense model and speeding up new elements or allowing IT resources to be shifted to higher-value projects.

XaaS isn’t a new phenomenon, but as consumers move more workloads to the cloud, there are indications from manufacturers and researchers that XaaS will become an increasingly widely-used business model. Research by Spherical Insights suggests the global XaaS market could reach US$1.2tn by 2030, caused by an increase in the number of internet users, the quick adoption of cloud services, and the production of more data by businesses.

As KPMG describes, over the last two decades, the ‘as-a-Service’ model has revolutionised how technology resources are provisioned and consumed.

“From a consumption perspective, there has been a rapid migration to on-demand environments that can be provisioned through self-service, with elasticity to allow rapid scaling and ubiquitous availability via multiple access channels and with billing flexibility,” KPMG says.

Moving to the cloud

Utilising cloud infrastructure has a number of benefits. According to Oracle, by moving to the cloud, businesses can reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprint by up to 90%. Meanwhile, AWS says running business applications on remote servers can reduce energy usage by nearly 80% and carbon emissions by up to 96%.

Sustainability has increasingly become a core consideration for IT decision-makers when shaping their cloud strategies, with 74% of respondents to a Colt survey

“By moving to the cloud, businesses can reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprint by up to 90%”

What if resiliency isn’t about withstanding today but envisioning tomorrow?

describing it as an important part of their cloud operations. By utilising XaaS offerings, businesses can benefit from a scalable approach to on-premises and hybrid workloads coupled with environmental benefits.

“We help our customers right-size the technology they need and manage IT from edge to cloud, instead of buying assets and over-provisioning,” says Valerie Da Fonseca, WW Sales and GTM Director, HPE Greenlake cloud services at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. “30% of large data centre servers are unused. That means a waste of US$30bn dollars annually.”

“We try to help address the key causes of inefficiencies, while helping GreenLake customers execute an efficient, hybrid, multi-cloud delivery model,” Da Fonseca adds. “That really helps deliver many of the sustainability benefits that we commonly associate with the public cloud.

“Using the as-a-service consumption model really helps our customers get exactly the same experience with the benefits of sustainability,” she continues. “Our modelling indicates that customers transitioning from a traditional CapEx model to another service, like HPE GreenLake, can achieve a more than 30% reduction in their energy costs.”

“30% of large data centre servers are unused. That means a waste of US$30bn dollars annually”

DA FONSECA

SALES AND GTM DIRECTOR

According to a report conducted by SYSTEMIQ, XaaS models can deliver both environmental benefits and economic value.

“More and more companies are recognising the environmental impact of XaaS models – but they do not always leverage the full potential,” said the report, which was conducted by SYSTEMIQ on behalf of the SUN Institute.

It then goes on to state: “Whether as companies or consumers, we know we

need to reduce our carbon footprint. But how? For many consumer goods, the majority of emissions come not from manufacturing, but in their use phase: around 50% for computers, closer to 50-80% for conventional cars. The smarter use patterns of XaaS models promote a more sustainable use of natural resources and waste reduction, aiding our economies on the path to net zero.”

XaaS model growth since COVID19 pandemic

According to research by professional services firm EY, businesses’ readiness to adopt XaaS models has risen dramatically since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the technology sector leading the way.

EY’s report, As-a-Service Business Operations & Transformation: When customers change the way they buy, should you change the way you sell? –which surveyed 1,200 organisations to gauge adoption trends of XaaS across industries – found that, while only 9% of surveyed businesses have completed XaaS transformations up to this point, most (85%) are at the progress stage, whether that is piloting or operating at scale.

The report found that more than half (54%) of responding businesses said they are prepared to adopt XaaS, while the number of businesses that are not yet ready has fallen sharply – from 13% in 2019 to just 2%.

With the market maturing at such pace, businesses are increasingly migrating from basic subscriptions to consumption-based models and outcomes pricing. While 60% of all organisations surveyed are currently using subscription models to charge for XaaS offerings, 52% told EY they intend to shift to consumption models in the next three to five years.

“Businesses are shifting toward consumption-based pricing because it offers agility, affordability and minimal capital commitment – which is, in turn, translating into scalable profitability,” explains Michael Kanazawa, EY Global Innovation Realised Leader and EY Americas’ Consulting Growth Strategy Leader.

“The business models are evolving even further as companies combine their subscription services with consumptionbased pricing, helping customers to extend or enhance offerings as needed. These new blended models can require innovation to value propositions and product designs, as well as the need to transform commercialisation approaches and backend capabilities.

“A main takeaway point from this year’s research is that these XaaS models are moving toward the mainstream, and as they scale, they are driving the need for transformational changes across the enterprise.”

“Businesses are shifting toward consumption-based pricing because it offers agility, affordability, and minimal capital commitment”

MICHAEL KANAZAWA, PRINCIPAL AND EQUITY PARTNER, EY

MAKING SUSTAINABLE FINANCE A REALITY BY 2030

PRODUCED BY:

GLEN WHITE

WRITTEN BY: JOANNA ENGLAND

Adam Thompson, Head of Global Sustainable Finance and ESG for IBM Consulting, talks implementations, timelines, and sustainable finance goals.

Idon’t want to sound alarmist, but the world has until 2025 to implement massive changes, ecologically speaking or we’re all going to have a big problem on our hands,” says Adam Thompson, Head of Global Sustainable Finance and ESG for IBM Consulting.

Thompson, who is an expert in data and sustainability, is also, in his spare time, an EU Climate Pact Ambassador – a platform that informs, inspires, and supports climate policies and action in local communities and broader networks.

The British father of three – who currently lives in the Bavarian Forest, Germany, is a passionate advocate for renewable innovations, green technologies, and the transformation of the financial space. From where he’s sitting, accountability is key in driving the change required to prevent climate disaster and mass migration that currently looks imminent if we don’t act NOW!

He says: “In my day job, I work with clients to holistically look at how they embed environmental, social governance, or economic factors into their decision making and how do they operationalise that as part of a transformation for pathways to netzero, for climate, nature, or indeed how to rebalance society as a whole. The EU Climate Pact is work that I do in my spare time, along with living as self-sustainable as possible. So, I hopefully not just talk the talk, but also walk the walk.

Net zero and the 2030 agenda

Indeed, Thompson, who sees his position more as a vocation than a career, does not describe sustainable finance and ESG merely as trends. “This is a movement – a global,

worldwide movement. This is not just about how to apply technology across services. This is really about how we, as one planet and as one society, ensure that we have a planet for the next generation.”

They are powerful words – but ones he stands by. “We need to consider how, in 10, 20 years down the line, the next generation is going to be able to balance their resources. We are on a tightrope, and what’s interesting is that FinTech startups are really beginning to look at nature-based solutions, and these solutions have had incredible exponential growth in a short amount of time by embracing exactly the very solutions that IBM has been speaking about.”

“It’s fundamental to everyone's likelihood that we address this”

ADAM THOMPSON HEAD OF GLOBAL SUSTAINABLE FINANCE AND ESG, IBM CONSULTING

IBM Consulting and the environment

But where does the world’s biggest technology company fit into all this? Well, according to Thompson, it comes down to data, meaningful and accurate communications, and collaborative innovation. He explains that IBM Consulting is the linchpin of the organisation, and that its role is to talk to clients and understand where they are in terms of their ESG and sustainability drives.

“We measure their performance with regards to their own indicators on sustainable finance and how we can actually leverage data as to whether that’s from geospatial feeds or whether that’s from their own existing data streams they have to date”.

ADAM THOMPSON

TITLE: HEAD OF GLOBAL SUSTAINABLE FINANCE AND ESG

COMPANY: IBM CONSULTING

INDUSTRY: IT SERVICES

LOCATION: GERMANY

Adam is IBM Consulting’s Head of Global Sustainable Finance and ESG Leader

On both a personal and professional level, Adam is dedicated to lead and contribute to the necessary changes required, in order to make our planet more sustainable - since 2022 Adam has proudly performed his voluntary role as a European Climate Pact Ambassador.

Adam has already worked across 30+ countries in Europe, Africa, Middle East, India and Asia Pacific, and managed teams of 100FTEs+. Consequently, Adam is even more motivated to address sustainability challenges, as he's seen first-hand the impact climate change is having for various populations around the world.

EXECUTIVE BIO

“We normalise and transform that into insights that can be actionable for themselves, for their own clientele, but also ensure that that’s competitive and comparable with their other industry incumbents and geos accordingly. We also work with our technology partners here in IBM as well as our ecosystem partners, where we have really leading edge and specific requirements, putting our IBM research and quantum into freight so we can actually provide new innovative solutions with regards to ESG and sustainable finance.”

For Thompson, it’s not just a job but a role that he embraces with zeal. “I also try to share knowledge and experiences as to how we can all make an impact individually with regards to climate; how we can all be more self-sufficient in our daily lives and make

“Once we have clarity on the US Security Exchange Commission, in terms of regulations, that might change. But right now, it's been regulatory driven”

IBM Consulting: Tacking ESG and finance through technology

ADAM THOMPSON HEAD OF GLOBAL SUSTAINABLE FINANCE AND ESG, IBM CONSULTING

less waste, but actually be more circular and regenerative in our day-to-day activities.”

Circularity is a key part of the research and development IBM Consulting is concentrating on. The concept focuses on business accountability, from production, to supply chains to the customer, and then to the recycling of products once they have been discarded. This is key in circumventing the ‘throwaway’ nature of the current industrial business systems that sees millions of tonnes of waste being dumped into the environment rather than managed sustainably.

Sustainable finance and ESG

But the definition of sustainable finance and its place within ESG isn’t always immediately clear. This is, in fact, a point that Thompson is keen to clarify.

“Sustainable Finance is really an umbrella regarding embedding ESG into any of the decision making and insights. At IBM, we also provide data curation accelerators to support the embedding of ESG into decision flows. Indeed, we also provide analytical suites regarding big data and new data sets that organisations might not necessarily have to date, for example whether its measuring biomass in nature, or societal impacts and related ecosystem services.

“We actually provide that as an end-toend data stream so that when you actually want to create new value add or products for your own services or for your own clientele, you can then also containerise them, easing consumability accordingly.”

Our Consulting Sustainability Services approach also enables clients to co-innovate

by scaling to other use cases. Such as “Key focus themes of Climate-first but not Climate-Only, with for example the 30/30 agreement from COP15 etc. Or, indeed if you wanted to do something that’s completely nuanced, such as naturebased solutions such as engineered reefs, we would support organisations from an IBM garage co-creation all the way through to the solution that you can then assetize that and actually sell that as a service, as well as having it recognized on your balance sheet –a true sustainable transition”

Sustainability and timelines

With such strict goals regarding timelines and creating more sustainable financial systems globally, the work is challenging. Thompson explains that the ideal transition into sustainable finance needs more progress and catalysts. In recent times various geopolitical factors and energy crises as well as certain corporations’ unwillingness to genuinely embrace the ESG agenda has slowed the ESG momentum. He speaks about the green asset ratio (GAR) and what that currently means in relation to assets being categorised as “green” by the EU taxonomy for Europe.

For GAR “Right now, organisations might find that they’re in single digits in terms of percentage points, which will be quite normal as we’re both on a transition journey, and there is diverging scope and value between the various financial institutions structures. But that said, what would ‘Good’ look like? Well, for most organisations, by 2025 to 2030, ‘Good’ needs to look like most organisations starting to be at the minimum 50% mark and above, to show true transitional improvements.”

Despite the challenging outlook for many companies to reach their needed

sustainability commitments, Thompson is optimistic that technology and co-innovation are the accelerators to make those aims a reality. “When you realise it’s only Europe that we might get up to 25% of renewables by the end of the year, then compared to where we originally started in the early 2000’s we were still in single digits, then there’s definitely the ability to transform. Capital, ironically, is not the challenge. The challenge is to put the capital to those projects, which would actually contribute to meaningful change and support for example the achieving Europe’s Fit for 55 Target of 40% renewable energy by 2030”.

“And this isn’t just about a tick box exercise; this is really looking at it holistically by saying to clients, ‘If you want to invest in wind turbines or if you want to invest in solar power farms, that’s great, but you also need to look at some of the other green elements beyond climate and secularity, for example, about societal impact’ etc.”

Thompson says that having a more transparent landscape regarding the implementation of sustainable finance and ESG will act as a catalyst for greater adoption of practices and that ESG risk ratings require more oversight ref the granularity of good quality primary datasets to ensure all

“It’s very clear that the runway that we all have to address this is shortening”

ADAM THOMPSON HEAD OF GLOBAL SUSTAINABLE FINANCE AND ESG, IBM CONSULTING

corporations are working towards impactful ratings and consequently investments.

“ESG risk ratings have been very diverse. In that level of granularity, it’s been ranging from the 50 to 100 mark, through to 300, depending on which rating agency has been leveraged. That’s going to be the next one where this secondary data source – which has been good in front or perfect for the last number of years – will change.”

“More importantly, it’ll provide that holistic, quadruple bottom line that the people, planet, prosperity, and purpose lens for the consumer can be included in.”

He continues: “Some organisations talk about ESGI [Environmental Social Governance Impact] – that quadruple bottom line is intrinsic and linked to our UN SDGs. It’s not just about making a return on investment over five or 10 years. It’s about having something that’s regenerative, that has a positive impact on society.

“But when it comes to the industry as a whole, I think we’re at a crossroads. You have those who are really embracing sustainable finance – based on my own dialogue with institutions, this certainly happens in Europe a lot more than in the US to date.

“Potentially once we have clarity on the US Security Exchange Commission in terms of regulations, this dynamic might change. But right now, it has been regulatory driven. But what is also clear generation-wise, from a consumer spending perspective, this is also changing the trend and the focus of ESG adoption.”

Digital partners driving the ESG movement. IBM is naturally not alone in its efforts to deliver this ESG message and works with a wide network of technology giants globally to innovate and deliver new products, services, and ideas within the ESG and sustainable

finance markets, including AWS, Celonis, Microsoft, Oracle Salesforce, SAP, Workday.

“If we’re talking sustainability performance management, a lot of corporations obviously have a book of record. So, with our Partners SAP, Oracle and Workday, absolutely we will work hand in glove together, and we complement one another, whether it be embracing their integrated sustainability software capabilities, or a co-innovation of new assets, or indeed where we take some of our own sustainability software portfolio offerings such as Envizi to provide a holistic solution jointly to our clients.

“In terms of the social element, we work market leading companies such as FRDM, where we actually look at the whole endto-end value chain and environmental factors, but also take into account a multitude of social factors from employee welfare, diversity and inclusion, and working conditions for all those from tier one to tier X suppliers.”

However, he points out that despite the advantages of the digital ecosystem, and the advances IBM Consulting has made, many challenges still exist because technology stacks aren’t standardised across the board. “When you’re talking about other platform providers, we have alliances, but we also leverage their platforms. So, it will never be one size fits all.

The future of sustainable finance Thompson is keen to emphasise that, despite the broad technocratic processes involved with implementation of ESG regulations, it is ultimately all about serving humanity more effectively, as well as preserving the environment.

“First off, we already have goals in place that we don’t leave anybody behind – the 17 UN SDG (sustainable development goals) make that very clear.

“For myself, I would like to see that we don’t just act as the torch-bearers, but we actually take more accountability than we do today, in terms of when we make financial investments, and that we ensure that it’s

“There will be a domino effect from nature and, in terms of biodiversity degradation, water scarcity, and obviously climate change itself in terms of the temperature rises”

ADAM THOMPSON

HEAD OF GLOBAL SUSTAINABLE FINANCE AND ESG, IBM CONSULTING

not just during the light power, but beyond.” Here is the need of Life-Cycle Investing and Circularity Transition Indicators as part of Financial Investing.

Circularity in terms of production, use, and recycling, is key. “It’s more about becoming attuned to the needs of both the industry but also the needs of the planet, as we are going through this sustainable transition. And I can see innovation playing a fundamental role in the creation of more secondary markets for further recycled and repurposed materials too. But it’s ultimately a collaborative dialogue because we all have a role to play from design to consumption to regeneration – both at a corporate and individual level.”

Furthermore, Thompson explains that whilst COP27 and COP15 have played a vital role in addressing the needs of the planet as we move forward, time is of the essence. “The timeline for required change is actually lower than 2025. You realise very quickly that there will be a domino effect from nature and in terms of biodiversity, degradation, water scarcity, and obviously climate change itself in terms of the temperature rises and consequently climate human migration as a result”.

He concludes: “It’s fundamental to everyone’s livelihood that we address this. And sustainable finance is absolutely key in playing that by channelling funds and investments in the right direction to make impactful change. But it’s very clear that the runway that we all have to address this is shortening. We need to take action now for the foreseeable future.”

The future FEMALE

WRITTEN BY: LUCY BUCHHOLZ

Although we’ll have to wait more than 100 years to see gender equity in the workplace, Kate Barker, Chief Future of Work Leader and Global Consulting Advisor explains how the future of work will be more gender inclusive

future is FEMALE

Kate Barker Chief Future of Work Leader and Global Consulting Advisor

e’re still well over 100 years away from achieving gender equity. In fact, the World Economic Forum estimates it will take 136 years, to be precise.

To put this into perspective, 136 years ago was 1887. Humanity was yet to see the horrors of the First and Second World Wars, and we were still 107 years away from smartphones. Steam power was our main form of propulsion, and the first-ever car was just a year old.

It’s safe to say a lot has changed over the past 136 years but, in a fast-moving society with groundbreaking technology at our fingertips, it’s hard to comprehend why it will take so long to achieve the seemingly basic goal of gender parity.

Although some progress has been made in recent years, there’s still undoubtedly a long way to go.

Technology and gender equity

Technology is set to play a crucial role when it comes to advancing the standing of women over the coming years. As the world around us digitally transforms, technology has the potential to empower women by providing greater access to education, job opportunities and financial independence.

“One way technology has helped advance women is through increased access to education, learning and development,” explains Kate Barker, Chief Future of Work Leader. “Online courses, coaching, mentoring and educational resources can be particularly beneficial for women living in areas with limited access to education, or to those who face barriers to attending traditional schools. This can help women gain the skills they need to enter high-demand fields and pursue careers that were previously closed to them.”

Technology has also been used as a tool to help women overcome barriers in the workplace, providing access to video technology that permits hybrid working models, while promoting a path to financial independence by providing new opportunities for entrepreneurship.

Kate explains: “E-commerce platforms and other digital marketplaces can allow women to start and grow their own businesses with lower overhead costs, while digital payment systems can help women overcome barriers to accessing traditional banking services.

“However, it's important to note that technology alone cannot solve all the challenges that women face. In order for technology to truly advance women, it must be accompanied by significant policies and cultural changes that promote gender equality and create a supportive environment for women to succeed.”

“One way technology has helped advance women is through increased access to education, learning and development”

KATE BARKER CHIEF FUTURE OF WORK LEADER & GLOBAL CONSULTING ADVISOR

DIVERSITY & INCLUSION

Use more image captions as often as possible

Kate Barker Chief Future of Work Leader and Global Consulting Advisor

ADOPTION OF VALUES-BASED LEADERSHIP:

Companies are increasingly recognising the importance of values-based leadership, which involves aligning business practices with a set of core values. This approach can help companies build stronger relationships with employees, customers and stakeholders, and can lead to greater long-term success.

GREATER EMPHASIS ON SKILLS DEVELOPMENT:

As technology continues to advance, people will need to continually develop new skills to remain relevant in the workforce. People will need to invest in their own development, stay curious and constantly learn, while companies will need to invest in training and development programmes to help employees stay up-to-date with the latest technologies and trends. As skills become obsolete in two to five years, we will stop focusing so heavily on teaching skills. Instead, we need to teach ‘learning’.

INCREASING DEMAND FOR ETHICAL BUSINESS PRACTICES:

Consumers and employees are becoming more conscious of the ethical implications of their purchasing and employment decisions. As a result, companies that prioritise ethical business practices, such as transparency, fairness and accountability, are likely to be more successful in the long run.

FOCUS ON EMPLOYEE WELLBEING:

As work becomes more demanding and the lines between work and home become increasingly blurred, companies may need to place greater emphasis on employee wellbeing. This could include initiatives such as flexible work arrangements, mental health support and wellness programmes.

THE RISE OF THE TALENT MARKETPLACE, THE GIG ECONOMY, FREELANCING, CONTRACT WORK AND SHORT-TERM PROJECTS:

These are becoming increasingly common, and many people are choosing work arrangements suited to themselves, rather than traditional full-time roles. This trend is likely to continue and companies may need to adapt to a more fluid workforce.

Kate Barker shares her expert insights to highlight what she believes is in store for the future of work

Elevating women to leadership roles

As the old saying goes, ‘seeing is believing’. A business landscape where more women take on and accept high-level positions will not only inspire others to follow suit but will also ensure increased diversity in decision-making positions.

Encouraging women to apply for leadership roles benefits businesses in a number of ways. In fact, gender diversity has actually been proven to increase profitability levels, as shown in a 2020 study by McKinsey and Company. The research found that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to have above-average profitability. What’s more, companies with women in leadership positions were also more likely to perform better financially, suggesting that diverse teams benefit the company’s bottom lines.

“Increasing the number of female leaders also helps to expand the talent pool of organisations,” Kate explains. “Deloitte research found that diverse teams outperform homogeneous teams in

“Increasing the number of female leaders also helps to expand the talent pool of organisations”

KATE BARKER CHIEF FUTURE OF WORK LEADER & GLOBAL CONSULTING ADVISOR

terms of decision-making, making better decisions 87% of the time.

“In addition, a 2019 study by Boston Consulting Group found that companies with more diverse management teams had higher revenue from innovative products and services than companies with less diverse teams. Therefore, by promoting women to leadership roles, organisations can tap into a broader talent pool and gain access to diverse perspectives and experiences.”

It must be emphasised that DEI strategies shouldn’t just be used as window dressing by companies, but should also be a crucial pillar of organisational culture. This will allow businesses to not only recruit more women into their teams, but also inspire current employees to remain in their jobs – thus saving valuable time and money on recruitment costs.

In turn, this can lead to increasingly effective decision-making and problemsolving as women bring unique perspectives and experiences, which can lead to more creative and innovative solutions to complex problems.

“Elevating women in leadership roles is a crucial step towards promoting workplace equality and creating more inclusive organisations,” Kate asserts. “By prioritising gender diversity in leadership, organisations can improve their performance, expand their talent pool and create a more positive and supportive workplace culture.

“Likewise, automation and AI are likely to play a larger role in the workforce in the coming years, across all industries. While this may lead to job losses in some areas, it will create many new opportunities in exciting new industries, in roles that are yet to be invented.

Workplace trends here to stay Cast your mind back three years ago –pre-pandemic – and you may recall the workplace looked distinctly different to that of 2023. Hybrid or remote working was for the few, not the many, and movements such as Black Lives Matter were catapulting racial equity to the top of many businesses’ priority lists.

These trends have had an unprecedented impact on gender equality in the workplace, allowing women to juggle their careers with family life and caretaking responsibilities. Marginalised women have also been able to step up, take centre stage and be heard.

And luckily for us, these trends are here to stay.

“Remote and flexible work arrangements are only set to increase in the future of work,” Kate says. “With advances in technology and the increasing need for companies to be more agile and responsive to changing market conditions, I see remote working shifting to ‘work from anywhere, anytime’, with changing organisational policies, starting with for expert and project-based roles and ultimately leading up to 40% of an organisations workforce. The workplace will shift from a place where traditional work is done to a meeting place to connect, collaborate and build deeper relationships with colleagues.

“With the rise of technology and remote working, employees are now able to work from anywhere, which can blur the

lines between work and personal life. As a result, employers are likely to become more aware of the importance of worklife balance, and offer more flexible work arrangements to attract and retain top talent. It will be a market differentiator and important if companies want to stay competitive.”

Companies will also continue to place more value on employees who are able to bring their unique perspectives and experiences to the table. Kate explains: “This could involve things like valuing diversity in hiring practices, encouraging employees to be themselves at work and fostering an environment of open communication and collaboration. As a result, employees may feel more empowered to bring their authentic selves to work, which can lead to greater job satisfaction and better performance.”

What does the future of work look like?

Although we’ll have to wait for almost a century-and-a-half to experience a truly equitable workplace, progress is slowly but surely heading in the right direction. Trends such as hybrid working models, technological advancements and encouraging women to take leadership and board positions will undoubtedly continue to shake up the workplace, enabling us to make leaps and bounds toward equality.

Businesses will also continue to push for DEI strategies in the workplace while striving to create more inclusive and

“Remote and flexible work arrangements are only set to increase in the future of work”

KATE BARKER CHIEF FUTURE OF WORK LEADER & GLOBAL CONSULTING ADVISOR

KATE BARKER CHIEF FUTURE OF WORK LEADER & GLOBAL CONSULTING ADVISOR

“The future of work is continuing to be shaped by a combination of technological advances, changing workforce demographics and evolving organisational structures and ESG considerations and values”

equitable environments. Once this is achieved, we’re likely to see a ripple effect, promoting diverse hiring practices, inclusive training opportunities and equal pay for all.

Similar to DEI, there will also be a greater push for ESG strategies, with businesses prioritising net-zero and carbonneutral goals.

“Many companies are recognising the importance of ESG considerations and are taking steps to reduce their environmental footprint, promote social equity and improve governance practices,” Kate adds. “Companies that prioritise sustainability

and corporate social responsibility are likely to attract top talent and enjoy greater long-term success.

“The future of work is continuing to be shaped by a combination of technological advances, changing workforce demographics and evolving organisational structures and ESG considerations and values. Companies that can adapt to these trends and prioritise sustainability, DEI, values-based leadership and ethical business practices are likely to be successful in the years ahead.”

HENKEL’S SECRET TO SUCCESS:

AMAZING CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

WRITTEN BY: ILKHAN OZSEVIM

PRODUCED BY: CRAIG KILLINGBACK

customercentric Supply Chain (SC)

It all began with a vision. Henkel, the German multinational chemical and consumer goods company, many of whose goods you surely consume and have done since your childhood, saw that the world was changing. Henkel recognised that they needed to transform, and to be able to do this, they completely reimagined the supply chain.

Unravelling this vision, is Bjoern Neal Kirchner, the Global Head of Supply Chain for adhesive technologies. The goal was to create an amazing customer experience as a competitive edge.

Kirchner explains: “The vision behind the customer-centric Supply Chain (SC) transformation programme emphasised the potential for supply chains to contribute to the top line, in addition to the traditional bottom line.”

“While most supply chains focus on improving cost positions, inventory and working capital – in other words, KPIs established on traditionally internal data –Henkel believes that supply chains can also improve how customers engage with the company itself,” says Kirchner.

“By optimising the many touchpoints that customers have with Henkel throughout the entire supply chain interaction, such as ordering, logistics and planning, Henkel aims to provide a unique customer experience that can set it apart from its competitors.” This is a creative and visionary approach.

Henkel’s

transformation programme is nothing short of remarkable; Bjoern Kirchner shows us how they did it

Inspiration Center Düsseldorf: The state-of-the-art building comprises 30 labs and 4 technology centres for more than 650 Henkel employees

BJOERN KIRCHNER

TITLE: GLOBAL HEAD OF SUPPLY CHAIN FOR ADHESIVE TECHNOLOGIES

COMPANY: HENKEL

Bjoern Neal Kirchner is the Global head of supply chain for adhesive technologies at Henkel.

He is an experienced economist who has studied in both Munich and London. After completing his studies, he opted to travel to China where he was awarded a scholarship to study the Chinese language and immerse himself in the country’s culture. It was during this time that he began his career in logistics, as he sought to better understand China’s supply chain landscape. He secured a position at a logistics company, where he became captivated by the real-world challenges faced by businesses and their employees. From there, he continued to grow within the supply chain industry, holding various positions in different locations, including China, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Germany.

When asked how Henkel approaches establishing an amazing customer experience as a competitive edge, Kirchner explains that the company had to effectively relearn its perspective on customers.

The North Star

Instead of building on its own perception of what is good or effective and then executing on them, Kirchner says that Henkel engaged with customers on an entirely different level.

“So, we identified the values that were important to them in their engagement with us,” he says. “And through this process of value mapping, we identified areas where we may have not been delivering up to our customers’ expectations – in areas such as reliability, speed and innovation. Then, based on these findings, we implemented new programmes to improve the customer experience in all of these areas.”

So what is the guiding light in Henkel’s reimagining of the supply chain – or even more correctly – the value chain? Kirchner says: “We knew that we needed a North Star, and we needed it to guide the transformation and ensure that we were getting better at creating amazing experiences for our customers. This North Star was forged out of our customers’ values.”

As an execution-driven operational team, Kirchner says that Henkel are accustomed to having numbers guide them – making it difficult for something like the customer experience to be effectively measured.

“However, we needed an indicator,” he says, “an indicator that shows us whether we are making progress for our customers, and this is where the North Star shines.

“It is also crucial that, as an indicator, the North Star be connected to the overall

“Digital capability should overcome a purely functionalist view of supply chains”

BJOERN NEAL KIRCHNER

GLOBAL HEAD OF SUPPLY CHAIN FOR ADHESIVE TECHNOLOGIES, HENKEL

Henkel and CAMELOT: A longstanding, trustful relationship

Bastian Kunze, Partner for Supply and Operations at CAMELOT Group, explains how his company became one of Henkel’s most trusted partners

Within any partner ecosystem, trust between organisations is absolutely paramount.

For more than a decade, it’s that exact trust that has enabled Henkel and CAMELOT Group to form a strong and fruitful relationship. CAMELOT has enjoyed 25 years of successful supply chain consulting, leveraging industry expertise in life science, chemicals, consumer goods and industrial manufacturing.

Explaining the firm’s core mission, Bastian Kunze, Partner for Supply and Operations at CAMELOT, says: “We connect people, processes, and technology to enable our global customers during their supply chain transformation journey.

“We are able to do that because we combine management consulting capabilities with enterprise application know-how and digital innovation.”

Trustful relationship at heart of supply chain projects

CAMELOT’S partnership with Henkel began with a supply chain process and solution implementation using SAP APO technology.

Several more projects followed in the ensuing years, mostly in the area of demand, supply and production planning – but always with the aim of innovating Henkel’s supply chain processes.

“We have had to tackle various challenges,” Kunze adds. “These were things like improving the inventory situation or helping Henkel to bring their demand process to the next level. But everything is based on a long-term, trustful relationship. That was always the foundation.”

Recently, the partners tackled a complex supply and inventory project, which saw CAMELOT implement the DDMRP (demanddriven material requirements planning) concept and the innovative Supply Chain Avatar DDMRP module by Elixum. This further improved and positioned inventory throughout Henkel’s entire supply chain network.

Elixum: Home of the Supply Chain Avatar

Elixum is a global software company that was born out of the CAMELOT Group and, in Kunze’s words, ushered in a “new era of operations and supply chain management”.

Its flagship product, the Supply Chain Avatar, is a cloud-based software suite enabling organisations like Henkel to build and plan resilient, sustainable supply chains by combining the best of two worlds. One element of this is next-generation, advanced planning and scheduling functionalities; the other is AI-driven, cognitive decision support during that process.

“With the in-built Hypertrust Platform,” Kunze explains, “the Supply Chain Avatar solutions can be implemented and deployed on any system infrastructure out there in the market.”

Success breeds trust

One thing that clearly helps to build trust between partners is success – and that’s exactly what CAMELOT has consistently achieved. The firm’s proven, market-leading supply chain process experience, combined with deep technology knowledge and global delivery capabilities, has continued to make the difference for Henkel and similar clients.

With its latest project, CAMELOT has increased the visibility of Henkel’s inventory status and projection, using increased automation that facilitates faster decision-making.

Kunze concludes: “We were able to position the inventory in the Henkel network at the right place, with the right quantity, with an overall effect of lower inventories – achieving a greater supply chain resilience.”

strategy of the company, which in our case is to create an amazing customer experience with our technologies. By doing so, we ensure that we are always aligned with our overarching goal, and that every step we take is working towards achieving that goal.”

Kirchner says that it’s important to put this indicator in place to ensure that momentum is not lost as progress is made. “Additionally,” he says, “ the truth is that people need encouragement, and seeing the North Star KPI rising is a clear sign that progress is being made towards the company’s vision. To achieve this, we reviewed our current service KPI and brought in the perfect order measurement.

The perfect order

The difference between the perfect order measurement and other internal data is that with the perfect order, Henkel is able to cast its net much wider, capturing data points from the customer’s perspective as well. By doing so, they are able to take into account the actual time of arrival; what the customer requested initially; and what Henkel have promised to deliver. “By measuring progress against these external data points, we can be sure that our customers will feel the difference,” Kirchner says.

Fixing a kitchen worktop with Pattex

Establish amazing customer experience as a competitive edge

Reimagining the customer-supply chain relationship – 360 degrees Henkel has a philosophy that “digital capability should overcome a purely functionalist view of supply chains”. Kirchner says: “Traditionally, supply chains are viewed as a linear chain of events that transform raw materials into finished goods, with the customer only at the end of the chain.

“However, Henkel believes that new technologies can enable a 360-degree view of the customer, putting the customer at the centre of all functions that interact with them.”

This approach requires a different set of technologies to ensure that everyone in the company has the same view of the customer experience. “For example,” he says, “service cloud technology allows for customer service interactions to be tracked and followed up on, providing insights into customer satisfaction levels.”

Digital capability, in this example, is an enabler to drive towards a new customer experience.

“The vision behind the customercentric Supply Chain (SC) transformation programme emphasised the potential for supply chains to contribute to the top line, in addition to the traditional bottom line”

BJOERN NEAL KIRCHNER GLOBAL HEAD OF SUPPLY CHAIN FOR ADHESIVE TECHNOLOGIES, HENKEL

14% of global market

Across all 60 segments (Adhesive Technologies)

Bjoern Neal Kirchner

Flo Group is the leading OTM implementing specialist from Europe and the developer of new software solutions to optimise logistic processes.

A team of experts in IT, supply chain and logistics solutions worldwide. Every day they implement, develop, integrate, and connect software to solve any supply chain and logistic challenge.

Discover our Services 〉〉

Flo Group delivers OTM with excellence in client-centricity

As the leading OTM implementation partner, Flo Group’s CEO Michiel Keijzer shares how its expert consultants deliver customer-centric strategy and outcome

With circa 250 consultants globally, Flo Group is the market leader for Oracle Transportation Management System (TMS) implementation. With core teams in Europe, India, and South America, Flo is home to many senior experts with more than 15 years of experience driving knowledge around the Oracle product, which is helping support small and large scale businesses.

Built on a people-centric culture, Flo enables its consultants to develop and grow with echoing effects across its team and client base, delivering excellence and a like-minded approach to transport management.

To achieve this, Flo Group’s CEO, Michiel Keijzer, explained how Flo has created

a templated approach upon which its consultants can build to support businesses operating globally.

“The template can subsequently have functionality and locations added to ensure the solution meets local needs where required,” says Keijzer. “We do encourage our clients to keep localisations to a minimum for ease of solution ownership going forward.”

In the early stage of Oracle TMS rollout, Flo is heavily involved in the process to ensure a successful execution, where consultants are able to get clients on board with the solution for their own specific use cases.

“Our consultants will develop the core solution

and then support the global deployment for each regional roll out,” says Keijzer. “During the roll-out stage, we will work with the clients’ own teams as they become more familiar with the solution. After each ‘go live’ during a deployment, we will hand over to the Flo support team that offers 24/7/365 live solution support and is thereby able to support any timezone.”

This client-centric approach inherently puts Flo in a great position to meet and exceed customer expectations, which has been critical to its success and a leading component of its journey to Oracle Transport Management (OTM) stewardship.

“Henkel believes in the outside-in approach to supply chains, taking in the views and the voices of the customer, as well as data points from outside the company, to design and improve its supply chain performance towards customers”

BJOERN NEAL KIRCHNER GLOBAL HEAD OF SUPPLY CHAIN FOR ADHESIVE TECHNOLOGIES, HENKEL

Adhesives production at the site in Düsseldorf

Rechanneling data: from inside-out to outside-in

Kirchner discussed the difference between the inside-out and outside-in approach to supply chains, and where Henkel stands on this.

Kirchner says: “As the term ‘supply chain’ indicates, it is, in essence, a chain of events. We can visualise this as two opposing streams. The first consists of the material flow, which exists from the procuring of raw materials, to producing intermediaries, on to finished goods, and finally out to delivering those goods to customers.

“Then there is the information flow –and this streams in the opposite direction, from the demand of the customer, on to production and procurement.”

The traditional inside-out approach is where a company accesses the information it has inside of its company, and constructs its reality around that. Kircher expresses that as a company matures in the supply chain, they enhance their perception of their needs, and this is where digital capabilities come into play. “You begin to understand that you need to extend your visibility to the data you receive on both ends of your value chain.” Kirchner says: “In contrast, the outside-in approach acknowledges that a company is part of a much larger value stream that includes suppliers, distributors, customers and consumers.

“By taking these perspectives into account, we are able to make decisions that are better aligned with the overall value stream. Henkel believes in the outside-in approach, taking in the views and the voices of the customer, as well as data points from outside the company, to design and improve its supply chain performance towards customers.”

Building the value chains of tomorrow

As a leading value chain consulting and technology company, Bluecrux transforms today’s supply chains into smart, efficient and fully integrated value chains. As a community, that is built on the intersection which they call “the Cutting X”: where problem meets purpose, and expertise meets technology. Where supply chains evolve, and value chains are forged.

Transforming supply chains into the value chains of tomorrow

with purpose. Like no other player in the market, we offer a unique value proposition. One where expertise and technology converges.” Bluecrux focuses on distinct industry verticals, backed by the belief that specialised knowledge is crucial. It focuses on these main clusters:

Schoenmakers.

Founded in 2011, Bluecrux uses an ecosystem approach transforming the value chains of tomorrow. “The time of either providing advice or providing technology solutions is behind us,” says Managing Partner Anouk Schoenmakers: “We work with our customers to go from the initial ideation towards actual implementation and real results, combining consulting services with state-of-the-art technology.”

Across Bluecrux’s diverse customer base, it sees the same elements creating the rising complexity companies need to deal with nowadays:

1. The increasing speed at which business decisions need to be taken.

2. The growing uncertainty that businesses are facing.

3. The digitisation of technological progress that is needed.

4. The looming market disruption behind every corner.

“And while our answer to our customers’ complexities is always different, the elements that make up our offering are typically the same,” says Schoenmakers. “We connect a deep understanding of the problem with solutions

1. Pharma

2. MedTech

3. Healthcare

4. CPG

5. Specialty chemicals

6. Industrial manufacturing

“In our focus industries, we have the ability to help our customers to transform their entire value chain end to end,” says Schoenmakers. “At the heart of Bluecrux is the belief that innovation is born of collaboration. This requires a community approach, building a movement that is called The Cutting X. Where supply chains evolve and value chains are forged.”

Bluecrux’s transformational, collaborative, customer-centric approach is essential to Henkel: “No longer looking from an inside-out perspective, pushing one size fits all standards across the supply chain. Instead, we look through the customer’s lens.” Schoenmakers says: “We share the belief with Henkel that supply chains should no longer be linear, functional and siloed. Hence, we started a transformation journey together, to deliver real customer centricity.”

The key to overcoming complexity and unlocking supply chain value is the convergence of business and technology, says Bluecrux’s Anouk

From vision to reality: crafting the customer CX program

According to Bjoern Kirchner, the first step of building a customer centric Supply Chain (SC) transformation programme at Henkel was to engage directly with customers and ask them about their experience. This was the ‘going broad’ approach.

However, with over 150,000 customers, it was not realistic to cover them all, so Henkel selected customer representatives and engaged deeply with them, performing value mapping and workshops to build a perception of what customers actually thought of the company: ‘going deep’.

The second phase was about creating ideas to fulfil different customer needs, such as innovation capability, quality, reliability and speed. Henkel then gathered teams across all functions to generate ideas on how to improve the customer experience, redesigning crucial touchpoints, such as

shipment experience, track and trace, sampling and complaints processes.

Kirchner says: “We structured the CX programme into three areas, including the differentiators, which were the redesign of crucial touchpoints with customers, the fundamentals, which were the subsystems to enable getting those data points, and the efficiencies, which was about bringing new technology to capture a different efficiencylayers, such as process mining and optical character reading.”

He admits that the transformation was a complex undertaking given the size of the company, but it was powerful for both sides of the equation, and could partially fund new initiatives while continuing to contribute to the bottom line.

Products on display, Düsseldorf

(INSET): TCA: Application of thermally conductive adhesives for batteries of e-cars

(MAIN): Dragon Plant: Henkel is operating the biggest adhesive production facility near Shanghai, China

Henkel’s partner ecosystem

Such an undertaking could not be executed without the right partner ecosystem. Just some of the partners involved with Henkel’s projects include Bluecrux, VMware, Camelot Consulting, and Flo Group.

“When looking for a partner to help with our vision of repositioning the supply chain, we needed someone who had experience not only in customer-centricity, but also in supply chain planning. Bluecrux, with its deep supply chain knowledge and customer centricity track record, was a great partner for us to work with,” he says.

Kirchner also talked about their partnership with Camelot Consulting, which helps them with their material master data governance process and quality control. “The other area of our partnership with Camelot is in planning capabilities, where they are implementing demand-driven MRP to drive customer-centricity and outside-in supply planning.”

Flo Group is another one of Henkel’s key partners, and they work together in the logistics arena. Specifically, Flo Group was Henkel’s implementation partner for OTM (Oracle Transportation

13.2% Organic sales development (Adhesive Technologies)

“Henkel believes in the outside-in approach to supply chains, taking in the views and the voices of the customer, as well as data points from outside the company, to design and improve its supply chain performance towards customers”

BJOERN NEAL KIRCHNER GLOBAL HEAD OF SUPPLY CHAIN FOR ADHESIVE TECHNOLOGIES, HENKEL

Management). Kirchner says: “Flo Group’s expertise in implementation is crucial to our undertakings”.

Then there is Salesforce. Kirchner expresses that they are currently implementing Salesforce’s main application – the service cloud – in their customer service and technical teams. “We have been impressed with how professionally Salesforce has been running the program and are happy to learn from them. I believe it was a wise decision to work with a best-in-class company like Salesforce, and to listen carefully to their advice.”

Last, but not least, in Henkel’s pantheon of key partners is Fourkites. Henkel sees T&T capability as a basic customer requirement to shape customer experience. Fourkites is Henkel’s strategic partner to deliver visibility and transparency in logistics services. In the past few years, Henkel managed to cover a significant part of the deliveries with Fourkites’ T&T platform, and there is an ambitious plan to continue the roll out of T&T in the coming year.

The greatest challenges and lessons

Kirchner describes the biggest challenge in their current role as balancing the urgent needs of their supply chain team with the important task of transforming and maturing their capabilities in terms of systems, processes, mindset and people. Henkel needs to make sure that the performance and transformation sides of their teams work in-sync, and don’t develop things independently.

On a slightly philosophical conclusion – but one that has obviously served him well, as can be seen in his overseeing Henkel’s customer-centric Supply Chain (SC) transformation programme – Kirchner tells me that the best advice he has ever received is “to figure out how fast you can be in implementing change – and then go a bit slower – to make sure that people have enough time to absorb and digest it all”. And that’s how you turn visions into realities.

SMART TECH AND SUSTAINABILITY, ALL UNDER ONE ROOF

In an exclusive interview with Oliver Novakovic , Technical and Innovation Director at Barratt Developments, we explored the future of sustainable smart homes

WRITTEN BY: JOSEPHINE WALBANK

Barratt Developments is the largest housebuilder in the UK. And –as is the case for leaders within any industry – they are tasked with the role of pioneering new sustainability standards for house building.

Firmly taking up this mantle, Barratt is leading the future of green building technologies. The company is part of the United Nations’ Race to Zero campaign and has committed to building regulated zero carbon homes from 2030.

Nowhere is this trademark combination of sustainability and smart home technologies better demonstrated than in its two industry-leading build projects – the Zed House and the Energy House “eHome2”.

To find out more about these projects, the smart home tech being utilised, and what they represent for the future of home building, we spoke to Oliver Novakovic, Technical and Innovation Director at Barratt Developments.

Oliver Novakovic, Technical and Innovation Director at Barratt Developments

Oliver Novakovic

TITLE: TECHNICAL & INNOVATION DIRECTOR

COMPANY: BARRATT DEVELOPMENTS

INDUSTRY: CONSTRUCTION

LOCATION: UNITED KINGDOM

Oliver Novakovic was previously Group Director of Building Futures at the Building Research Establishment (BRE) for 10 years. Whilst there, he was responsible for driving process efficiency and innovation and also acted as a technical advisor on a number of Government programmes, including the AIMC4 Project.

Prior to the BRE, Oliver spent eight years at Westbury Homes, developing new processes for construction efficiency and ensuring designs were fit to meet the ever changing building regulations. At Westbury, he also developed timberframe systems for housing, including offsite manufacture.

Devising the Zed House

In early 2020, Barratt announced the beginnings of its ambitious Zed House project.

When it comes to setting carbon reduction targets, few companies face more challenges than those in the construction sphere. But, through the technologies and initiatives being deployed in this concept home of the future, Barratt was able to devise the first home built by a mainstream housebuilder that goes significantly beyond the government’s Future Homes Standard. In fact, the Zed House has been able to achieve

a reduction in carbon emissions that exceeds 125% of regulated energy.

In its Zed House project, Barratt brought together over 40 leading organisations, to create a sustainability-led blueprint for the housebuilding industry. It sought to demonstrate how much is possible, and how successfully new builds can manage the sustainability standards demanded by both governments and residents.

“The Zed House was very much about looking at a number of different areas around sustainability. Obviously, the primary focus was energy, but we

OLIVER NOVAKOVIC TECHNICAL & INNOVATION DIRECTOR, BARRATT DEVELOPMENTS

“The Zed House was very much a concept house. So we put around 50 different ingredients into the home; now, the reality of it is, to make the 2025 zero-carbon cake, we only need 10-15 of those ingredients”

Energy House 2.0 located in Salford, Manchester

Technology is instrumental to achieving next-level capabilities across industries. But organizations that want to operate sustainably must choose technology that lets them adhere to strong environmental, social, and governance principles.

Appian Corporation, a process automation leader, is a critical piece of the digital transformation and sustainability puzzle. The enterprise-grade Appian Low-Code Platform is built to simplify today’s complex business processes, with process mining, workflow, and automation capabilities.

EHome2 at Energy House 2.0

“By quickly building apps that streamline and automate workflows, organizations are using Appian to make their processes for monitoring and reporting on ESG initiatives faster, simpler, and more effective,” says Meryl Gibbs, Emerging Industries Leader at Appian.

also looked at things like embodied carbon, biodiversity in nature, different types of innovations around offsite construction, and smart technologies,” Novakovic explains.

Digital

As an AWS leader enabling sustainability solutions built on the cloud, Mary Wilson, Global Sustainability Lead at AWS, talks about the partnership with Appian.

“Our objective is to help our customers achieve sustainability goals across their business operations,” says Wilson. “[This means] looking at data availability, meaning access to more data, and enabling actionable insights. “Lowcode, cloud-enabled, technologies will allow organizations to build fast, learn fast, iterate, and continue to improve these insights to drive their sustainability outcomes.”

A data-driven approach, in an ever-evolving project

The results have proved extraordinary. For example, the house delivers the heating that a homeowner would need for four to five days of the week, without taking anything out of the grid.

“Both AWS and Appcino are amazing partners of ours,” says Michael Heffner, VP Solutions and Industry Go To Market at Appian. “We have an extremely long legacy engagement with AWS as our trusted, go-to-market partner and Appcino builds “meaningful, business-focused applications on the Appian platform and is amazing in all things ESG.”

Tarun Khatri, Co-Founder & Executive Director of Appcino (product part of Xebia), explains just how critical ESG is in the face of digital transformation. “The investment community now considers ESG reporting as a major factor for measuring performance,” says Khatri The collaboration will continually uncover new insights and provides customers the opportunity to accelerate their ESG goals with speed and security.

Data analytics proved critical in measuring both the success of the Zed House and the areas for improvement within it.

This pioneering project was only possible with the partnership of the University of Salford, one of the leaders in researching zero carbon construction and the impact of climate change.

transformation in ESG.

Executives from Appian, AWS, and Xebia share their collaborative efforts and excitement about their partnership in low-code, cloud, and sustainability.

Through this partnership, and by having academics live in Zed House for short periods of time, the smart technology and the performance of the house could be tested. This helped to inform the project’s next phase.

Through an expansive network of integrated sensors, data was collected regarding indoor air quality, thermal comfort, heating and renewable regeneration, to name a few.

“We had 95 sensors and about one kilometre of wiring all around the home to monitor how that home performed. We were building a home of the future, through new technologies, but we wanted to understand what it would be like to live in,” Novakovic explains.

The same approach was then deployed in the eHome2 project which was delivered in partnership with Saint Gobain. But, whereas Zed House was built outside on the grounds of the university, for this next instalment of the project, the house was built in a state of the art, climate-controlled warehouse.

“So we can literally make it snow, rain, generate heavy winds, and go from minus 20 to plus 40°C.”

This means that Barratt can test the home in the kinds of summers and winters that we might see in 2050 or 2100, and implement future-proof solutions, which homeowners can use comfortably.

WATCH NOW

eHome2 at the Energy House 2.0

OLIVER NOVAKOVIC TECHNICAL & INNOVATION DIRECTOR, BARRATT DEVELOPMENTS

“That was a really big part of the project – firstly, do these technologies work on their own? But then, more importantly, do they work in combination?”

“We can really implement all of the technologies, put people in the homes, and change the weather to see how it all reacts. Most importantly, that will give us data and information that will help inform the designs and technologies we use in the future and, with different customers, understand what they like and don't like.”

The future of sustainable smart home technologies

Building on these successful foundations, the next step for the company is a nine-month programme of research at the eHome2 chamber.

The Zed House features a wide variety of cutting edge-technology, including overhead infrared panels which provide instant zero carbon heat, air-powered and smart showers, plaster which eliminates air pollutants, appliances which reduce food wastage and water consumption, heated skirting boards, AI solutions to optimise the times at which devices consume electricity (ensuring

customers maximise the use of either free solar energy, or low-cost electricity from the grid), and the first car on the market that features Vehicle to Grid technology.

After the completion of the Zed House, its learnings were taken and utilised to shape the next evolution of the project – eHome2.

“Then with the eHome2, we took the learnings from the Zed House and moved that know-how on into the eHome2,” Novakovic explains.

“The main thing we learned is that some of the smart technology we used at the Zed House didn't quite work.”

“The Zed House was very much a concept house. So we put around 50 different ingredients into the home. Now, the reality of it is, to make the 2025 zero carbon cake, we only need 10-15. There were a lot of challenges and opportunities around how that technology communicated, and its consequential impacts.”

“That was a really big part of the project –firstly, do these technologies work on their

Snow simulation inside Chamber 1

“What's been great about the Zed House and eHome2 projects is the fact that we've been able to scour across not only the country, but across the world to find new technologies that can be used”

OLIVER NOVAKOVIC TECHNICAL & INNOVATION DIRECTOR, BARRATT DEVELOPMENTS

Barratt Developments Zed House

own? But then, more importantly, do they work in combination?”

As a result, when creating the eHome2, implementing harmonious IoT solutions was set as a top priority.

“So to resolve this, we've formed a unique partnership with a system that becomes the brain of a home. This really helps our customers get the best out of their homes, from energy efficiency, reduction of bills, comfort and all those things, which will become more and more important as you highly insulate buildings and put a lot of technology in.”

Barratt has also partnered with Google Nest, Give Energy, Tribe and a number of other companies, to create a seamless smart home experience. As a result, this approach features some of the most advanced, sophisticated solutions in the world.

“What's been great about the Zed House and eHome2 projects is the fact that we've been able to scour across not only the country, but across the world to find new technologies that can be used.”

Novakovic explains that this remains an ongoing project for Barratt, and that there is a lot more still to come, both in terms of Barratt’s plans for further innovation, as well as the industry’s adoption of smart technologies at large.

“I think house builders will move toward much more technical smart solutions to help deliver some of the zero carbon targets.”

“The opportunity here is that, not only does smart technology help our customers, but the reality of it is that lots of people within house building don't understand smart. So, there's definitely an opportunity to help us as an industry use that technology more effectively and more efficiently.”

“For me, it's quite an exciting time, but it's definitely one that we've got to tackle together.”

CAPGEMINI INVENT HELPS COMPANIES HIT THEIR SUSTAINABLE GOALS

WRITTEN BY: HELEN ADAMS

PRODUCED BY: GLEN WHITE

Healthy plants, pottery, and sustainable growth are some of Courtney Holm’s core interests. As the Vice President for Sustainable Futures at Capgemini Invent, her role can sometimes touch on all three.

Capgemini Invent is an arm of the Capgemini Group that focuses on digital innovation, consulting, and transformation. Holm’s role is to align sustainable development to client strategy and to help them embed cross-sector collaboration as a core competence.

Holm has lived in England for 13 years and is currently based in West Sussex, where she works from home a few days a week with quite a view. “We wanted to be closer to the forest and the coast. It’s the right place for us at this point in our lives,” she shares.

Holm has always been interested in sustainability and started her career back in the 1990s studying environmental science. “I then moved on to literature, pottery, and sociology, because I wanted to understand and write about how human disconnection and distraction away from nature was the root cause of all of our environmental degradation and social issues.”

During her literature degree, Holm focused on Shakespeare, believing no one else understood the human condition like him. Sociology to study society and human interactions, and finally pottery as one of the first human expressions from Earth’s bounty.

Capgemini Invent supports other companies to become more sustainable; Courtney Holm, Vice President for Sustainable Futures, tells us more

“Lo and behold, I couldn't get a job,” Holm admits. “So, I started working in horticulture, studied it formally, earned a certificate and then continued working in nursery and greenhouse production.”

This was in 2000 and was Holm’s first commercial encounter with technology and software for production management. “Technology was just starting to evolve, especially in the agriculture and horticultural space. By the end of it, I was managing quite a lot of the greenhouses and the fields from a rudimentary smartphone.”

After taking a year long break to travel, Holm moved to the UK to complete an MBA as she wanted to gain a broader understanding of corporate thinking around sustainable development. As such, she joined 2degrees – at the time, the world’s largest online community of sustainability practitioners – where under the direction

“As a society, we've been too focused on resiliency; we need to pivot towards adaptation”

COURTNEY HOLM

VICE PRESIDENT FOR SUSTAINABLE FUTURES, CAPGEMINI INVENT

of Martin Chilcott, she learned the importance of cross-sector collaboration and implemented it as the client director for the Tesco business at the company.

“I helped Tesco transform its fresh-food supply chain through the Tesco Producer Network and helped them launch their agricultural policy, through onboarding their global producers onto an online community to facilitate cross category collaboration. We also created the Tesco Knowledge Hub, with the remit to reduce the carbon footprint within its tier-one supply chain and support resource efficiency through cross-sector collaboration.”

After 2degrees, Holm moved onto a global role with Unilever where she focused on raw

COURTNEY HOLM

TITLE: VICE PRESIDENT FOR SUSTAINABLE FUTURES

COMPANY: CAPGEMINI INVENT

INDUSTRY: BUSINESS CONSULTING

LOCATION: LONDON, UK

Courtney Holm is Vice President of Sustainable Futures at Capgemini Invent. Her role is to shape the way Capgemini creates long term, sustainable value for clients, enabling them with fresh perspectives and digital solutions so that they can play a transformative role in addressing planetary, people and systems challenges. Courtney has a proven track record of implementing innovative technology solutions across sectors; helping clients with a broad range of strategic and operational sustainability challenges. She is an expert

Anna Mazzone is the EMEA Vice President for ServiceNow’s risk and ESG business unit, which provides a full suite of applications for clients to ensure they comply with ESG regulations and their governance, risk management, and compliance policies for running their organisations.

“ServiceNow delivers a company’s digital enterprise backbone that enables employees to take action in business today,” explains Mazzone.

“We make it easier for employees to make decisions. We aggregate data across similar assets so that they can understand how those assets are performing in real-time across the organisation.”

SERVICENOW’S SUSTAINABILITY GOALS

As a company, ServiceNow is on a journey to do its part in improving the environment.

“We believe that ESG, like risk mitigation and DEI, is everyone’s job across the organisation,” says Mazzone. “We’ve made very ambitious commitments; we have science-based targets that are helping to support our journey towards realising netzero, in terms of carbon emissions by 2030.”

With our dedicated team, we have reduced carbon intensity by over 50%, and now using 100% renewable electricity in facilities.

CAPGEMINI AND ESG

The partnership between ServiceNow and Capgemini is one of deep trust and respect. “They’re one of our global partners,” says Mazzone. “One of our most highly-regarded partners, as well. We’re both very much aligned to deliver solutions that are really focused on enabling our mutual clients to deliver a sustainable work environment.”

Our partnership with Capgemini works to deliver in three ways:

• Working together to ensure clients can deliver more secure technology environments by, for example, mitigating cyber attacks

• Improving employee work-life balance with truly outstanding digital experiences

• Focusing on faster resolution of client problems and queries by designing highly -efficient processes for mutual customers

SERVICENOW & CAPGEMINI, SAYING YES TO ESG & BUSINESS IMPACT

material traceability and was later promoted to Global Head of Sustainable Technology, where she helped colleagues leverage technology to deliver and scale the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan.

During her time in the UK, she learned that no one organisation could solve a systemic issue, and that multi-lateral collaboration was the only path towards a more sustainable future. In order to scale her impact, Holm understood that she needed to work with clients across different sectors, capabilities, and regions – which is why she decided to go to a consulting business. She joined Capgemini Invent in the UK, as Capgemini was expanding its client-facing sustainability offerings, which appealed to Holm.

“I wanted to influence and shape a capability – I'm entrepreneurial – and I have been afforded that luxury,” she explains.

“Even if we were to reach net zero tomorrow, alreadyexisting climate issues and their effects wouldn’t change. We don't know for sure what temperature we'll land on yet”

COURTNEY HOLM VICE PRESIDENT FOR SUSTAINABLE FUTURES, CAPGEMINI INVENT

“I've been here for nearly two years, and, in that time, I've established a practitioner-led capability and worked on embedding what I like to call ‘sustainable by default’ ways of working into the business and our services.

“To differentiate Capgemini Invent from other consulting firms, I've grown a team of experts and specialists – we've created a network of 550 consulting colleagues. In 2021, we collaborated with the University of Exeter and its internationally renowned climate scientists and sustainability experts to create a bespoke training programme for our consulting organisation, called the ‘Capgemini Invent Sustainability Solutions Leadership Development Programme’. The programme reinforces our wider team’s knowledge on global sustainability issues, ensuring they can bring value to our clients.

“Capgemini Invent is getting recognised in the market for having a different approach to other consulting firms”

Capgemini Invent helps companies hit their sustainable goals

COURTNEY HOLM VICE PRESIDENT FOR SUSTAINABLE FUTURES, CAPGEMINI INVENT

“Those who have completed this programme utilise their education while working side by side with our sustainability experts, enabling them to become practitioners in their own right over time.”

Helping companies become more sustainable

Capgemini Invent helps companies become more sustainable. “Capgemini Invent sits inside a wider organisation that’s a global leader in partnering with companies to transform and manage their business by harnessing the power of technology.

“From a sector perspective, Capgemini Invent assists both the private and public sector – including financial services, manufacturing, automotive, and life sciences, in addition to energy and utilities,

consumer products, telecommunications, and technology services.”

The brand also offers other capability units, including ‘Customer First’ which helps clients to deliver exceptional personalised experiences and continuously reinvent their businesses and offerings. “We have an ‘Intelligent Industry’ division, where we harness the potential of technology and data to transform and digitise products, industrial operations, and connected services across industries. And there’s ‘Enterprise Management’, where we help deliver, transform, and manage operations for digital core, business processes, and enterprise applications for greater agility and operational efficiency.”

Capgemini Invent has a further focus on business technology, including architecture

and IT as a service, factories, and acceleration. There's also a focus on analytics and artificial intelligence. Holm is a big fan of technology as an enabler for sustainable growth and, at Capgemini Invent, the team work to find digital solutions to help tackle environmental and social challenges.

Capgemini’s sustainability framework Capgemini is committed to helping clients with their climate and social transitions and has built a sustainability framework that focuses on three guiding principles for change:

• Commit

• Act

• Monitor and Report

“This is how we help our clients commit to sustainability for their core business, so that could be around their net-zero strategy, for example. Then we have a layer around taking action, so how do we help them to navigate the appropriate course of action to uphold commitments and drive change. For example, this could be by bringing sustainable products and services to the market or by optimising operations or IT to be more sustainable.”

The Monitor and Report pillar is concerned with data, and how the company helps its customers ensure that governance is structured to drive business change and facilitate reporting that’s consistent and coherent. For Holm, capturing and using the right data is fundamental to delivering change programmes: “It ensures that clients are getting the most out of the change, monetising the data that they're capturing in the best way possible, and that there's excellent datadriven decision-making.”

“We have the ambition to accelerate change and help create a sustainable and inclusive future. We want to be the consulting practice that helps clients be doers and not delayers, to put their assets to work towards the transition of the economy and climate change adaptation. Our guiding principles are critical to help us and our clients to prioritise scalable solutions, and to prepare for and adapt for the future.

“We have a broad range of specialisms across the team and can support clients with decarbonisation and efficiency, sustainable and responsible procurement, biodiversity strategy and implementation, sustainable consumption, product design and life cycle assessments, KPIs and reporting technology decisions, and with their brand purpose.”

The reception to this approach among Capgemini Invent’s clients has been positive with many surprised and delighted by its breadth and depth. “We're getting recognised in the market for being expert led and for having a different approach to other consulting firms,” shares Holm.

Client-centred sustainability strategy & collaboration

Capgemini has partnered with ServiceNow to build its domain and advance its digital excellence journey, ensuring greater flexibility and efficiency across the Capgemini ecosystem, in addition to the accountability of a single-source provider model.

For Capgemini Invent, it's about how to support clients advance their thinking

around sustainability. “We work with some great brands. How do we best support them on their sustainability journeys? A big key to my strategy – as I mentioned earlier – is cross-sector collaboration.”

“Capgemini is not a software firm, so technology partners are important so that we can provide technical solutions to clients. We are also technology agnostic, putting client business requirements ahead of any one solution that one of our partners may have. ServiceNow is a great partner because they also take a platform approach that works across multiple technology solutions, to manage digital work flows and ESG data from across an organisation’s systems,” explains Holm.

This year, Capgemini Invent is hosting a number of intimate events around

“We have the ambition to accelerate change and help create a sustainable and inclusive future. We want to help clients put their assets to work towards the transition of the economy and climate change adaptation”

COURTNEY HOLM VICE PRESIDENT FOR SUSTAINABLE FUTURES, CAPGEMINI INVENT

key topics that require cross-sector and multilateral collaboration. These events will dive deep into lesser-discussed issues surrounding specific topics that go beyond net-zero and carbon-mitigation strategies. “Biodiversity and community engagement around water basins is one of those topics. Another topic that we’re exploring more will be decarbonisation of UK homes.”

It is all go at Capgemini Invent, then – but Holm believes that it’s going to take every

business to put sustainable structure in place. “I really do worry that we’re not ready for the changes global warming will bring,” says Holm. “There’s so much that we have to change – not only about how businesses are run, but also how we live personally –and I think we’re currently unprepared for those changes.”

That’s why one of Holm’s key objectives is the focus on adaptation strategies. “We want to help our clients to see sustainability as an opportunity to build long-term value and a source of competitive advantage, not just a compliance requirement. This means shifting the focus from risk-avoidance to promoting justice and regeneration.”

Practically, this means supporting clients with an investment roadmap, with causality linked to their Capex and Opex expenditures, helping them understand the secondary and tertiary impacts of their investments over time, prompting them to take a long view. This will allow for customers to reduce impact, improve social wellbeing, and be more prepared for some of these changes.

“As a society, we've been too focused on resiliency,” says Holm. “Now, we need to start to shift towards adaptation, because even if we were to reach net zero tomorrow, already-existing climate issues and their effects wouldn’t change. We don't know for sure what temperature we'll land on yet.”

In the face of irreversible climate changes Holm believes that the industry needs to prepare for more change, mitigate any further climate impacts, and advise companies on their next steps – the latter of which function as Holm’s next steps for Capgemini Invent.

sustainable SMART

sustainable SMART CITIES

But is it possible to achieve our complete vision for the smart cities of the future using AI technologies to create a net-positive sustainable impact?

Technology and accelerating the drive to sustainability

The advancement in the fields of AI, the cloud, and IoT has accelerated at a phenomenal pace. And there’s no doubt that, in the short term at least, these technologies are creating additional demands on our sustainability requirements.

Fortunately, though, the additional demand of these technologies is outweighed by the sustainable transformation opportunities that they unlock.

“This is the decisive decade. I am, however, optimistic, and the IPCC have said we already have the tools and the technology we need

“FROM A TELECOMS PERSPECTIVE, IT REALLY IS THAT PERFECT COMBINATION OF IOT’S CONNECTIVITY AND 5G’S RICH CAPACITY CAPABILITIES THAT HAVE ENABLED AUTOMATED SYSTEMS AND FLOWS TO BE BUILT ACROSS CITIES”

AMR HOUSSEIN MANAGING DIRECTOR, MOBILISE

to tackle the climate crisis. We just need to use them,” asserts Adam Elman, the Head

of Sustainability for

“TECH IS NOT THE ANSWER

an intelligent systems-led approach. Not only to the technological solution, but also to the commercial

“Today, we have already proven technology that will get us 80% of the way to net zero. Today's challenge is, in fact, a commercial one; it's one struggling

other,” states Amr Houssein, the Managing Director of eSIM as a Service at Mobilise.

“From a telecoms perspective, it really is that perfect combination of IoT’s connectivity

“AS ENGINEERS, WE'VE BEEN TAUGHT THAT WHEN A PROBLEM IS COMPLEX, THE ROUTE TO A SOLUTION IS TO DIVIDE AND CONQUER”

CARL ENNIS CEO, SIEMENS UK

“Our data centres are about twice as efficient as a standard enterprise data centre. And, in fact, compared to five years ago, we produce about five times as much computing power for the same amount of electricity used. AI is a key way we do this,” Elman comments.

“Deep mind is an AI machine-learning specialist organisation within Google. A number of years ago, this started using neural networks to take thousands of data points and figure out optimisations that humans simply can't do, due to the amount of data and the variability within that.”

“And using those data points, passing them through an AI efficiency model, we were able to improve the efficiency of our cooling system by 30%,” Elman states.

For the emissions coming from the data centres, Google uses a carbon intelligence programme to predict how much computing power will be needed on a day-

progress. Environmental Insights Explorer provides data on building emissions, on real-time transport emissions, and on the opportunity to deploy things like solar.”

“One example is Dublin city: it has set a target to increase cycling trips by 20% and used real-time transport data to see what's happening in the city today. That's helped it develop plans for the infrastructure changes and policy changes needed to improve cycling. And it’s using that real-time data to track progress, to see if it's really having the impact that is desired,” Elman adds.

How will our mobile phones fit into this?

The ongoing development of mobile technologies, facilitated through the use of AI and IoT, demonstrates that connectivity can indeed be done sustainably.

Within smart cities, this will be achieved both at the macro level of governments and global corporations, and the micro of individual users of increasingly sustainable devices.

“Looking into the future, smart homes will become more sophisticated,” Houssein asserts.

“There will be a shift in how we view smart devices – they will no longer just be a ‘nice-to-have’ add-ons, but integrated elements of a home. Rather than a collection of unconnected smart devices, homes in the smart cities of the future will use IoT to become an interconnected ecosystem that seeks to improve efficiency, reduce running costs and make life easier and more comfortable for residents.”

And, thanks to the net-zero commitments and landmark sustainability developments of mobile giants like Google, sustainability will automatically be embedded in the smart city technologies that we will use.

“SOMETIMES, IT'S IN NEED OF A BURNING BUT I WOULD UNPRECEDENTED BUSINESS, FOR PEOPLE,

IT'S A CHALLENGE THAT'S DESPERATELY BURNING PLATFORM TO DRIVE CHANGE, WOULD PROFFER THAT WE ARE IN A TIME OF UNPRECEDENTED CHALLENGE AND CHANGE FOR A PEOPLE, AND FOR SOCIETY AS A WHOLE”

CARL ENNIS CEO, SIEMENS UK

Supply chain Transformation in the FAS

PRODUCED BY: GLEN WHITE

WRITTEN BY: SEAN ASHCROFT

Automotive Logistics Director Ashley Naughton on how McLaren is transforming at a pace one might expect from the maker of Earth’s fastest road cars

Few companies have the pedigree, history and pure elan of McLaren Automotive, the British manufacturer of luxury, highperformance sports cars and supercars. McLaren was founded in 1963 by Bruce McLaren, a New Zealand-born racing driver, and initially the company designed and built only race cars. In recent years, though, it has shifted its focus to high-performance road cars.

Building McLaren's fast-cardedicated logistics function

Its current lineup includes several models, including the 720S (£227,300/$305,000), and GT (£166,300/$204,990), all of which are midengine sports cars (meaning the engine sits between the axle lines of the front and rear wheels). The company’s latest model is the hybrid-powered Artura (£189,200/$233,000), which was introduced in 2021.

In addition to its road cars, McLaren Automotive also produces racing cars and provides support for various racing teams. McLaren Automotive has been at the forefront of automotive technology, leveraging its experience in F1 to translate this excellence into its road cars. Like other F1 teams (Williams and Mercedes) it is based in

South East England – in Woking, Surrey, – but has a worldwide network of suppliers.

The Woking facility is a state-of-the-art complex that includes design studios, as well as engineering and production facilities

for McLaren’s road cars, including the GT, Supercars and Ultimate cars.

The centrepiece of the Woking campus is the McLaren Technology Centre (MTC). It’s a stunning, futuristic building designed by famed architect Norman Foster, and is the kind of structure one can picture housing a colony of humans on the Moon, or even Mars.

The MTC houses McLaren’s design and engineering teams, home to advanced simulation and testing facilities, including wind tunnels and a driving simulator. McLaren Production Centre sits adjacent to the MTC and is the focus for its supercar operations.

In addition to its Woking HQ, McLaren has a world-class, state-of-the-art

“We make fast cars and have a fastmoving business, and sometimes that’s a bit of a challenge”

ASHLEY NAUGHTON AUTOMOTIVE LOGISTICS DIRECTOR, MCLAREN

McLaren Composite Technology Centre that manufactures its carbon fibre chassis architecture. It is based in Sheffield, in the North of England.

And overseeing all of the logistics holding these operations together is Logistics Director Ashley Naughton, who concedes that the most challenging aspect of the role is – aptly enough, given the dizzying speed of its products – “having to work at pace”.

“We make fast cars and we have a fastmoving business, and sometimes that’s a bit of a challenge,” he adds. But Naughton is battle-hardened on this front, having spent more than a quarter of a century in logistics and supply chain, working largely

ASHLEY NAUGHTON

TITLE: AUTOMOTIVE LOGISTICS

DIRECTOR

COMPANY: MCLAREN

INDUSTRY: AUTOMOTIVE

LOCATION: LONDON UK

Naughton brings over 25 years' global industry experience from aerospace and automotive supply chain.

During his career, highlights include 18 years working for Rolls-Royce PLC holding various operational leadership roles in the UK & USA.

In recent years, Naughton has been focusing on supply chain transformation and digitalisation with some of the UK’s largest automotive

AN INNOVATION, DESIGN AND TRANSFORMATION POWERHOUSE

At Capgemini Invent, we help our clients to embrace innovation and transformation to get the future they want.

By combining strategy, technology, data science, and creative design expertise with an inventive mindset, we partner with our clients to innovate and transform their business, helping them navigate today, while plotting a course for the future. Explore our brands

Capgemini Invent: driving efficiency in McLaren’s supply chain

In today’s volatile climate, Capgemini Invent & McLaren are on a three year path to building a strong and sustainable supply chain to support McLaren’s expansive future.

Capgemini Invent enables CxOs to envision and shape the future of their businesses. It is working all over the world to enable its clients to unleash human energy through technology for a more inclusive and sustainable future.

“We partner with our clients to unlock the value of technology and help them transform their businesses, and support management and stable growth,” says Phil Davies, Capgemini Invent’s Head of Intelligent Industry in the UK.

Davies distils this process into three key stages:

y Using technology to advance the consumer experience

y Accelerating intelligent industry

y Transforming client enterprise efficiencies

Capgemini Invent recently began working with British supercar giant McLaren on

its logistic operations, looking at how it can combine technology, people and processes to drive resilience and sustainability into those operations.

“The world today is much more volatile; supply chains are constantly disrupted,” adds Davies. “We are working with McLaren to implement a strategy to cope and live with that disruption.”

The three main elements of the relationship are:

y Driving efficiency into McLaren’s supply chain

y Supporting McLaren with the transformation of its logistics operation

y Providing a three-year vision

“The three-year vision is really focused on how to create a logistics operation that’s going to thrive in this volatile future,” explains Davies. “Propelling them to unleash the potential of their organisation.

“The aim is to allow them to continue their relentless focus on customer experience and quality whilst building that resilience and visibility they need to cope in today’s volatile world.”

Ashley Naughton, Logistics Director at McLaren, adds: “Capgemini has been an instrumental partner for us. They’ve brought in thought leadership and shared the best industry practices, not only with automotive clients but also other industry sectors, which allows us to learn how other sectors are approaching different problems.”

“I think both McLaren and Capgemini are organisations that really focus on outcomes,” concludes Davies. “So, whilst we’re in the early stages of building the vision, I would say ‘watch this space’ around the next 18 months.”

McLaren: supply chain transformation in the fast lane

in aerospace and automotive, with firsttier suppliers, in either manufacturing or logistics services.

He says the most satisfying aspect of his role at McLaren is “working with our people”.

He adds: “It’s a very passionate organisation, with a rich history in automotive and racing. The innovation and ingenuity of the people is really quite inspiring.

“We also have a very complex product,” he says, “which means we’ve got extremely specialised suppliers, and we are constantly looking to improve the business.”

This, Naughton observes, often means his team has to react super quickly, and concedes this puts pressure on people “to support what the business is trying to achieve”.

Along with logistics chiefs worldwide, Naughton’s ability to support McLaren goals

“Capgemini has been very supportive in helping us to understand the art of the possible”

ASHLEY NAUGHTON AUTOMOTIVE LOGISTICS DIRECTOR, MCLAREN

has not been made any easier by a multitude of shocks and pressures existing today.

Overcoming obstacles with digitalisation, determination & data

Whether that be raw materials shortages, capacity limitations or cost pressures, it all presents challenges. It’s a situation that makes him more determined than ever to future-proof McLaren’s supply chain.

“It’s about mitigating challenges that are as yet unknown,” he says. “Having information early on in our supply chain is very important. We don’t always know what’s around the corner, so it’s about understanding the risks to our business, and making decisions based on that understanding to safeguard ourselves.”

And what of the longest and most painful supply chain shock of all in the automotive manufacturing world: microprocessor shortages?

“In terms of future-proofing against semiconductor shortages, nothing is going to protect us completely. There is no insurance policy that will give us total availability for all the semiconductors we need.

“That said we have done really well with semi-conductors and were very proactive, early on, as that risk emerged. Securing those commodities gave us the breathing space that others perhaps have struggled with.”

Naughton continues: “Moving forward and thinking about a wider scale of the supply chain, we can better protect ourselves by having early information around these risks,

1963

McLaren was founded in 1963 by Bruce McLaren, a New Zealand-born racing driver

which are sometimes in the third or fourth tier of the supply chain.

“So building supply chain maps and then ingesting data using technology is a way to become more resilient, so we can deal with those shocks when they occur.”

It is this climate of uncertainty that prompted McLaren to embark upon the digital transformation of its supply chain and logistics operation.

“If you stand still, you’re actually moving backwards,” Naughton says of the digitalisation programme. “Logistics and supply chain are a core part of our business. We design products, we manufacture the vehicles, but we can’t do that without our supply chain partners.”

Naughton adds that McLaren Automotive handbuilds state-of-the-art super cars in a state-of-the-art facility and is constantly looking to innovate. “The same applies for our manufacturing and Logistics operations,” he adds. “I want that same performance. Agile, communicative, and responsive.”

This is why McLaren is investing heavily in improving its supply chain ecosystem.

“Our suppliers are partners in our business and we need their support to be successful. If we don’t invest in that then we’re being negligent,” Naughton says. “Our supply chain is a key enabler for our business. It’s integral to the way that we do business.”

The strategy on digitalisation “comes down to three Cs”, Naughton says.

“It needs to be connected, collaborative and ultimately needs to be cognitive.”

He adds: “It’s about having data that we can use to make decisions much earlier than we do today. This is how we derive resilience, how we optimise and how we discover efficiencies. We need technology to do this, and we’re on that journey.”

Operationally, Naughton says the benefits of digitalisation derive from breaking down

barriers and silos that “traditionally exist within organisations”.

Such barriers also exist within the supply chain network, Naughton points out, adding that technology can create opportunities for all partners in that ecosystem. “Collaboration and data sharing is quite simple if we adopt Cloud, for example,” he says, adding: “Our inbound operations will hugely benefit from digitalisation and technology, but then that flows into the manufacturing ecosystem, of which I’m part. Similarly, there is also a strong drive for transformation within the manufacturing team and we need to ensure we are synergising.”

Ultimately, he says, the goal of the programme is to transform the business “so our customers get a better quality product and a more reliable service”.

He adds: “At the end of the day, any transformation programme must keep the customer in mind, which is why we’re deeply connected to our customers and how they view our products, as well as how they view the service. Ultimately, we want to be faster, more effective and more trusted, so that we can better deliver on what customers expect.”

Capgemini collaboration is feather in McLaren's cap

Helping McLaren drive the change programme in the right direction is Capgemini, a global leader in consulting, technology services and digital transformation.

“Capgemini has been an important partner for us,” says Naughton. “They’ve brought in thought leadership and have shared industry best practices.”

And not just from the automotive clients with whom Capgemini works, says Naughton “but from other industry sectors”, which he says has been invaluable “because we need

to learn how other sectors are approaching similar and different problems”.

“Capgemini has been important in helping us to understand the art of the possible and to identify those opportunities where technology can help McLaren on its journey.

Naughton admits that there is still much to come “because the company’s logistics transformation is quite embryonic in terms of crystallising what the future looks like”.

He adds that the next phase “will be to begin looking at the specific opportunities and capabilities Capgemini has helped us identify”.

He continues: “We need to consider what’s right for McLaren. We are unique in certain aspects, but we need to adopt standardisation where it makes sense. I am fortunate to have a strong team around me to make the right choices about our future logistics operations. As I said before, it’s about the people. Moving forward, its about understanding the choices we face, and

ASHLEY NAUGHTON AUTOMOTIVE LOGISTICS DIRECTOR, MCLAREN

then making decisions based on those options. We’re not quite there yet, but in the coming months we’ll begin making decisions around the processes and technology, then implement what we see as the biggest opportunities.

“Some of those changes will come from our internal team members and some will come from our partners. We have a really strong team here who have already

developed digital capabilities so we will continue to leverage our skills, but there will be things we need support with.”

Sooner rather than later, Naughton hopes – in keeping with the fast pace of life so fitting for a supercar manufacturer.

“I like to operate at pace,” he says. “It’s in my DNA and also in McLaren’s, who like to do the right thing, quickly.”

So that’s the near-term. But what about the longer-term future for McLaren? How does Naughton see this shaping up?

“We will move towards being an insightdriven organisation. Network data is key for this to occur. Through collection of such data, this will enable us to become far more resilient. “The need for sustainability cannot be ignored. The majority of Scope 3 emissions

“We derive resilience from having data we can use to make decisions much earlier than we do today”

come from the supply base, so we have a responsibility to improve how we operate our business. This will be our future.”

From fast cars to fast manufacturing, there's a need for speed in the future

Naughton feels that recent changes at the top of the company will shape McLaren’s performance in the next 12 to 18 months.

Michael Leiters joined as CEO of McLaren Automotive in July 2022.

German-born Leiters has held senior positions at Porsche AG, eventually becoming a Product Line Director there. More recently, he was Chief Technology Officer at Ferrari. So he is certainly someone who knows all about fast-moving manufacturing environments.

“I think we’ve got an exciting future, particularly with Michael Leiters joining the organisation,” says Naughton, adding that “there’s also lots of other positive changes”.

Among which, he says, is “a shift-change in the way we approach things, from design through to delivery of product”.

He adds: “It’s one of the reasons I took the opportunity to join McLaren. I’m passionate about driving change and am lucky enough to have a leadership team that supports the need to transform. “It’s an exciting time to be in operations and supply chain logistics in the automotive business. I believe our future is really bright.”

FASHION SUSTAINABLE

SUSTAINABLE

Cotopaxi

Founder & CEO: Davis Smith

Cotopaxi is dedicated to promoting sustainability through its "Gear for Good" commitment, that ensures it produce durable and ethical apparel.

By 2025, Cotopaxi plans to use recycled, repurposed, or responsiblysourced materials in all of its products.

Cotopaxi prioritises sustainability for both people and the planet, taking into account every phase of a product's lifecycle, which includes partnering with factories that treat workers fairly and sourcing materials that align with sustainable practices.

VEJA

Group CEO: Laure Browne

Paris-based shoe brand VEJA creates trainers that make a difference by mixing social projects, economic justice and ecological materials. In doing so, the brand is able to reduce its environmental impact while limiting the number of chemicals and water used in production. VEJA sneakers are produced at a higher cost compared to other brands due to their use of FairTrade and organic raw materials. This approach ensures economic equity for all parties involved in the production chain and supports sustainable practices.

Annie Agle, Senior Director Impact & Sustainability

Pact

CEO and Co-Founder: Brendan Synnott

At Pact, sustainability is viewed as an essential part of the company’s philosophy, recognising that its actions can have a direct impact on stakeholders and the communities in which it operates. The company also realises that sustainability involves more than just reducing carbon footprint; it encompasses the impact of its products and services on the environment. Since 2002, the Pact Group has been a leader in the circular economy movement, emerging at the forefront of developing packaging reuse and recycling solutions.

MATE the label

Founder & CEO: Kayti O'Connell Carr

MATE the label is a brand that is deeply committed to sustainability and the wellbeing of both people and the planet. The brand recognises that fashion is not just an industry, but an ecosystem, and they strive to protect it for future generations. Their circular approach to manufacturing ensures that every step of the process is done in a way that is good for the planet, the people who make the garments, and the people who wear them.

Why Clothing Materials Matter with Kayti, Founder of Mate The Label

Join the Event Disrupting Sustainability

6 - 7 September 2023

Business Design Centre, London

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Naadam

Co-Founders: Matt Scanlan & Diederik Rijsemus

Established in 2013, Naadam is committed to achieving transparency, ethical practices, and environmental preservation. The company's main goal is to provide high-quality cashmere at affordable prices by directly working with herders, enabling them to pay higher wages while charging less. Naadam also aims to become carbon neutral by reducing emissions, investing in offsets, and prioritising renewable energy, while endeavouring to reduce packaging and switching to sustainable alternatives.

For Days

CEO and Co-founder: Kristy Caylor

For Days is a sustainable clothing brand that aims to create a better future by producing 100% recyclable clothing. By focusing on zero-waste clothing, closed-loop systems, and circular fashion, this eco-friendly brand offers high-quality basics that can be repurposed into new pieces. In exchange for returning old clothes, customers receive a swap credit that can be used to give any wardrobe a new lease of life.

The True Story of Naadam - The World's Fairest Cashmere

Girlfriend Collective

Co-Founder & Creative Director:

Ellie Dinh

They may not be turning water into wine, but they are turning water bottles into clothes. By collecting consumer-used plastic bottles, crushing them into minuscule chips, washing them and adding a few ecofriendly additives, Girlfriend Collective makes super-soft gym wear. Their yarn is made in a zero-waste, zero-emission facility while their packaging is 100% recycled and recyclable – so there’s no need to throw anything away again.

Outerknown

CEO: Mark Walker

Founded by 11x world champion surfer Kelly Slater, Outerknown is a trailblazing brand known for its total commitment to sustainability. With 90% of their fibres being organic, recycled, or regenerated, along with 100% of their trunks being made with recycled or renewable fibres, the brand is setting the bar high for the fashion industry. They believe in creating excellent-quality, sustainable products that last a lifetime, with the goal of keeping their garments out of landfills and in circulation forever. In 2021, they launched Outerworn, a platform that breathes new life into previously owned Outerknown garments.

tentree

CEO & Co-Founder: Derrick Emsley

At tentree, sustainability isn't just a buzzword – it's a way of life. The company has been carbon neutral since 2020, and their commitment to protecting the planet is evident in everything they do. They believe that simply claiming to be sustainable isn't enough, and strive to be transparent about their efforts to restore forests in Indonesia to source sustainable cotton. By sharing their journey with their community, they hope to inspire others to join them in their mission to create a healthier planet.

As a certified B Corp, tentree maintains the highest standards for people and the environment throughout their manufacturing process. They even plant 10 trees for every item purchased, with a goal of planting one billion trees by 2030. So far, they've already planted over 70 million trees and show no signs of slowing down.

Their clothing line, which includes activewear and loungewear, is made from various sustainable fabrics, such as organic cotton.

tentree | Together We Can Make A Difference

Patagonia Action Works

Creator: Fabian Marelli | Credit:

Copyright: CORRESPONSALES_FTP

Patagonia

CEO: Ryan Gellert

Outdoor apparel brand Patagonia has emerged as a progressive, cuttingedge brand leading the way for others in the fashion industry. The brand has built its business model to have sustainability at its very core, rejecting fast fashion by creating high-quality, long-lasting products, and offering a repair-and-reuse programme.

Whether consumers need moisture-wicking tees or waterrepellant hiking shorts, Patagonia has a wide range of premium clothing that performs well, causing minimal harm to the planet. The brand's dedication to using 98% recycled materials and their transparent approach to environmental impact has made them a company that truly values the health of the planet.

Patagonia's commitment to using Fairtrade, organic cotton and recycled materials is evident in their clothing and gear, making them the top choice for outdoor enthusiasts seeking durable, eco-friendly options.

Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia founder

AP

GLOBAL SWITCH LONDON, A BLUEPRINT FOR A GREENER FUTURE

WRITTEN BY: MARCUS LAW

Global Switch’s London Campus located in the Docklands, the capital’s premier connectivity hub, is home to the world’s leading networks and cloud on-ramps

Global Switch is an owner, operator and developer of large-scale, carrier and cloudneutral, multi-customer data centres across Europe and Asia-Pacific. Founded in 1998, today Global Switch is one of the highest credit-rated data centre companies in the world with investment-grade credit ratings from Fitch Ratings, Moody’s and S&P Global Ratings.

Global Switch’s portfolio compromises 13 world-class data centres that house a myriad of organisations seeking high-specification technical data centre space for their mission-critical equipment.

“We have around 430,000 square metres of floor space and are occupied by a broad range of customers, global and national, large and small including government organisations,” says Matthew Winter, Global Switch’s Chief Design Officer.

“The company's focus is on highly resilient, central, low latency, network-dense locations in prime city centre locations and internet hubs close to customers on the edge of financial and business districts,” he adds. “Our data centres operate exclusively in the Tier I markets of Europe and AsiaPacific and provide an ‘Always On’ service, serving our growing customer base across the two regions.”

GLOBAL SWITCH

Global Switch’s stateof-the-art London campus

Global Switch’s London campus is a stateof-the-art data centre environment located in the heart of the city’s connectivityrich London Docklands, with access to an abundance of carriers and cloud providers.

The original home of London’s internet, and in close proximity to Canary Wharf and the City of London, the Docklands area continues to attract global businesses seeking resilient, highly connected data centres, with Global Switch central to this hub.

The Global Switch London campus was established in 1999 with the redevelopment of the historic Nick Grimshaw-designed former Financial Times newspaper printworks, creating the London North data centre, explains Adam Eaton, Global Switch’s Executive Group Director for London.

“The campus grew in 2002 with the launch of the 12-floor, purpose-built London East data centre with over 65,000 square metres of space,” he says. “The campus is fantastically positioned, only a stone's throw from the financial district of Canary Wharf and located on the site of London’s earliest network and connectivity hub.”

While other data centre hubs have sprung up in other London locations, the Docklands area is still the capital’s premier connectivity hub with the largest availability of networks and cloud on-ramps, Eaton comments. “The Docklands hub continues to see significant data centre development and has available power, unlike Slough and other areas west of London where new power coming to market is already reserved,” he says.

“In terms of performance, Global Switch has operated data centres on the London campus for nearly 25 years,” Eaton assets, “developing a wealth of knowledge and experience that has permeated through

an operations team that has a pinpoint focus on health and safety and operational performance.”

Extending and expanding the London campus

Global Switch’s London campus, which enjoys allocated power in excess of 125MVA and has, for a number of years, purchased 100% renewable electricity to cover Scope 2 emissions, is currently in the midst of a redevelopment programme.

Both London North and London East are in the process of redevelopment that will deliver additional highly energy efficient, low

MATTHEW WINTER

TITLE: CHIEF DESIGN OFFICER

Matthew joined Global Switch in 2014 and has held several roles, including Engineering Director and Group Projects Director before being promoted to Chief Design Officer in 2020. He started out as a design engineer in 1990 working in leading engineering consultancy practices, and holds a Master’s degree in Intelligent Buildings as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Building Services Engineering Design & Management. He is also a Chartered Member of CIBSE and an accredited Uptime Tier Designer. Since joining Global Switch Matthew has extensively been involved in the design and engineering of Global Switch data centres. As Chief

“In terms of sustainability, it is better to redevelop, reducing unnecessary emissions of alreadybuilt forms than replace them with new”

MATTHEW WINTER CHIEF DESIGN OFFICER, GLOBAL SWITCH

power usage effectiveness (PUE) suites. The campus has been built to support a variety of different customers, from hyperscale multi-megawatt deployments through to enterprise and single rack colocation.

Furthermore, the campus will be further extended and enhanced with the planned development of a third data centre on the campus, London South, which is expected to come online in the next few years.

“We started the redevelopment programme with London North and upgraded space within the data centre to provide high-density technical suites with increased IT power,” Winter comments. “These spaces reflect our reference design principles with no raised floor and flooded room cooling, delivered by a fan wall product. These initial spaces are already contracted to a global Enterprise customer. The completion of the Phase 1 redevelopment will see the delivery of additional high-density suites.”

Similarly, in London East, Global Switch has a power densification programme which will see existing suites refurbished to provide higher power density. “This commenced with a singlefloor feasibility study which was immediately let to a hyperscale customer,” Winter comments. “Through this first phase, we have extended the study to look across the whole data centre to offer further improvement in terms of PUE and high-density space.

“While London North and London East are focused on continuous improvement, we also have our planned new development London South which will sit alongside our other data centres as a part of a single campus but with diverse utility and connectivity services,” adds Winter. “This state-of-the-art data centre will complement the other data centres on our campus and expand upon the IT power and services that we can offer.”

“The campus is fantastically positioned, only a stone's throw from the financial district of Canary Wharf as well as the City of London, and is located on the site of London’s earliest network and connectivity hub”

ADAM EATON EXECUTIVE GROUP DIRECTOR, GLOBAL SWITCH

Redeveloping a working Grade II* listed data centre

Originally designed by Sir Nicolas Grimshaw for the Financial Times as a printing press facility, and opened by then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1988, Global Switch’s London North site was converted into a data centre in 1999, transforming the building from communication in the printed form to one of digital communication.

With the building named a listed building in 2016 by Heritage England on account of the standing of the architect, there were a number of challenges faced by Global Switch when it came to redeveloping a live data centre in a historic building.

ADAM EATON

TITLE: EXECUTIVE GROUP DIRECTOR, LONDON

Adam joined Global Switch in 2022 having previously owned and lead his own cloud and managed hosting provider. As Executive Group Director, Adam is responsible for maintaining a best-in-class operational environment for the London Campus while continuing to drive business development, new initiatives and new developments, including the redevelopment of London North and London East and the development of a third data centre on the campus, London South which will increase the campus by

FanWall: modular efficiency, maximum power

FanWall HBCV: chilled water or direct expansion versions for high density hyperscale Data Center

Learn more

HiRef S.p.A. is an Italian company born in 2001 which offers air conditioning solutions for technological, industrial and service environments designed to go beyond standard concepts.

It offers effective, cutting-edge solutions that are designed specifically after thorough studies and tests and are aimed at economical and environmental efficiency, innovation and success.

HiRef’s HBCV series is the answer to the growing request for fanwalls for Datacenter cooling.

FanWall HBCV units are chilled water air conditioners designed for technological environments where a compact footprint is requiredwithout impacting on the cooling output capacity.

Our in-depth CFD (computational fluid dynamics) analysis has allowed every last constructive detail to be designed so as to minimize internal airflow pressure drops and, therefore, fan power consumption.

At the same time, the large surface of the finned pack exchanger minimizes the approach temperatures between inlet air and outlet water, maximizing system efficiency.

What are the main advantages?

• FanWall HBCV units are particularly suitable for application contexts that do not involve the use of a raised floor

Each FanWall HBCV is customizable in size to fit the plant specifications and can be configured as single or dual modules

• Blown through heat exchanger coils with hydrophilic treatment

Can be ordered with a fully redundant refrigeration circuit

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Geometry “A” for Δ T = 5°C

Geometry “B” for Δ T = 8°C

Geometry “C” for Δ T = 12°C

• Ventilation EC 2.0 designed to adjust the air flow according to the thermal load

• Easier scheduled maintenance: front access to internal components is granted even with units running.

Global Switch London, a blueprint for a greener future

2030

Target to purchase 100% renewable electricity across all of Global Switch’s data centres

“Redeveloping existing data centres means that they are generally operational and so the works need to be meticulously planned to avoid any consequential downtime,” Winter explains. “This means that projects can sometimes take more time to complete when compared to new builds.”

“With London North, it meant that we could not modify the façade nor a spine wall inside the building, which gave us some challenges adding to the complexity of the project. Nonetheless, the data centre has been upgraded to a high standard including the entrance.”

One of the most significant challenges when redeveloping the site was strengthening the floors which required additional structural foundations to be installed in an operational environment, all while restricting vibration.

“Great care has been taken to look at the plant loadings on the roof while replacing the two historic cooling systems with a new system of free-cooling chillers,” Winter describes. “In all, we have received very positive reviews of the already-let new space that has been created that will ensure the building continues to be suitable to meet current and future demands.”

Energy efficiency programmes at the London campus

Sustainability is a fundamental part of Global Switch’s business, which is continuing to reduce its carbon footprint across its global portfolio. All new European developments target a minimum of BREEAM ‘Very Good’ with a PUE of less than 1.2 and all Asia-Pacific developments target a minimum LEED ‘Gold’ with a PUE of less than 1.4, as well as other local sustainability certifications.

Global Switch’s London campus, in particular, has been subject to a number of

energy efficiency initiatives, which are also being rolled out to Global Switch’s other sites, starting with its other European data centres.

“In London North, we replaced the two legacy cooling systems with one common system comprising free-cooling chillers,” Winter explains. “We also replaced all the CRAH units within technical suites and elevated the temperature of the water that is used as the medium to circulate cooling to the suites while also raising the leaving air temperature from the computer room air handlers to the servers under a supply air control strategy to reduce energy consumption; the data centre had historically been developed with return air control.

“In the redeveloped spaces where we have fan walls installed, the design has been validated by CBRE meaning they calibrated

JAEGGI’s hybrid dry coolers combine efficiency and sustainability

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their virtual twin of the infrastructure using the Romonet software against the installed plant which will at full load achieve an annualised PUE below 1.3.

“As part of this European-wide programme we aim to power intensify vacant suites as the power requirements of customers today are often much higher than they were 5-10 years ago: 10kW racks are not uncommon and equate, depending on their layout of up to 3,000 watts per square metre.

As Winter explains, Global Switch is embracing redevelopment rather than solely focusing on new builds that are also underway, reducing unnecessary emissions and helping the company meet its sustainability goals.

“In terms of sustainability, it is better to redevelop, reducing unnecessary emissions of already-built forms than replace them with new, which is why redevelopment should be showcased instead of just the new

builds,” he says. “In this respect, we have been piloting a new BREEAM scheme for the fit-out of our data centres, which has in the past only been applied to new builds.”

A number of steps have been taken to meet Global Switch’s targets of reducing carbon emissions and environmental impact.

“We have set a target to purchase 100% renewable electricity across all our data centres by 2030 for both our infrastructure and the customer IT load and in 2022, we purchased 78% of renewable energy against our total electricity consumption,” says Winter. “We are presently reviewing a science-based target with the aim of limiting temperature to 1.5° based on an ICT sector methodology for Scope 1 and 2 to achieve a near-term target for 2030 and so we are well on our way to achieving this. Our next challenge is to further understand our Scope 3 emission reduction and we need to work closely with our partners to achieve this.”

Key partners helping enable sustainability goals

When it comes to enabling these sustainability ambitions, Hi-Ref and Jaeggi have been key partners for Global Switch, supplying critical cooling equipment in its new data centre in Frankfurt and beyond.

“Both Hi-Ref and Jaeggi have been key partners who have supplied critical cooling equipment in our new Frankfurt North data centre and their partnership will continue with the expansion of new developments and our ongoing redevelopment programme,” Winter describes. “The Jaeggi hybrid coolers are a key workhorse in our cooling reference design and help us to achieve potential free-cooling for over half the year. Hi-Ref, while supplying CRAH units in Frankfurt North, has also been assisting us in the analysis of raising the chilled water temperature in our existing data centres through the redevelopment programme.”

To achieve its Scope 3 goals, Global Switch’s partners are key to achieving its goals. “The supply chain represents the majority of our Scope 3 with Fuel and Energy Related Activities (FERA) also being a key proportion,” Winter adds. “We are aiming to work closely with our partners to identify where the embodied carbon savings can be made while still achieving the objective output. I have been encouraging partners

“We have set a target to purchase 100% renewable electricity across all our data centres by 2030 for both our infrastructure and the customer IT load and in 2022, over 75% of our data centres had achieved this”

MATTHEW WINTER CHIEF DESIGN OFFICER, GLOBAL SWITCH

through our briefs that they provide Environmental Performance Declarations (EPDs) but accept there is a transition period for these to become common practice.”

Global Switch to help drive future connectivity needs

These are exciting times for Global Switch, with a sale process underway and significant developments planned and ongoing across the global footprint.

“In 2022, despite the macro volatility as a result of the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis and broader geo-political concerns, Global Switch demonstrated the resilience of its business model, which stands us in good stead for the next 12 to 18 months,” Eaton explains.

Significant growth in the sector of data and cloud computing and the growing adoption of applications from SaaS, PaaS and IaaS to mobile payments and gaming and video streaming will continue to drive significant data centre demand.

“Furthermore,” Eaton adds, “the growth of data-generating devices, such as smart meters and autonomous vehicles, as part of the Internet of Things, and 5G system deployments are new sub-sectors that will undoubtedly require vast volumes of data. ‘Always On’ data centres and high levels of connectivity, both of which Global Switch is well known in the market for, are critical components to deliver that demand.”

Global Switch is continuing with its proven strategy of redeveloping and densifying existing data centres and building new data centres in existing Tier 1 markets, in particular, adjacent to existing data centres. “This,” Eaton adds, “will deliver the required capacity to support growth in our existing customers as well as the forging of significant new relationships across the Hyperscale and Enterprise sectors.”

With increasing scale, Global Switch continues to evolve and the near future will see an even greater focus on ESG responsibilities. “We continue to evolve our operational processes to drive an everevolving ESG strategy and our comprehensive development and redevelopment programmes will ensure that, over the next period, the business focuses on many of the topics that are front of mind in the world.”

Significant developments driving data adoption

From new technologies to more integration

with local communities, there are significant developments in sectors new to the industry which are driving data adoption and enterprise architectural challenges.

“New technology often requires greater cooling capacity and we are seeing this with the growth of liquid cooling, however, any development will require a laser-sharp focus on environmental impact,” Eaton comments. “As our industry matures, I believe governance levels will increase and all that we do as an industry will become more public and under greater scrutiny. New developments will require more

“Global Switch has operated data centres on the London campus for nearly 25 years, developing a wealth of knowledge and experience that has permeated through an operations team that has a pinpoint focus on health and safety and operational performance”

ADAM EATON EXECUTIVE GROUP DIRECTOR, GLOBAL SWITCH

integration with local communities and an understanding of how the buildings integrate with the surrounding areas in which they exist will be paramount. We must explore how we can utilise our waste heat more effectively and to a greater good, for example utilising our waste energy to deliver local heating benefits.”

Innovative technologies such as AI and automation will also be used to drive changes in data centres globally, Eaton predicts.

“Operationally we will become smarter, utilising AI to drive changes to the maintenance regimes in the data centre campus and

delivering more proactive, condition-based maintenance programmes that will extend the life of equipment while reducing the environmental impact of maintaining for the sake of maintaining,” he concludes.

“Automation within the campus will increase and we will become smarter at managing the infrastructure, allowing for greater operating temperatures, improved efficiency and reduced environmental impact.”

The leader in luxury electric vehicles

Barely a decade into the popularisation of electric vehicles, Faraday Future is launching the first ultra-tech luxury electric vehicle: meet the FF 91

WRITTEN BY: CHARLIE KING

PRODUCED BY: TOM LIVERMORE

Prashant Gulati is the esteemed Vice President of Strategy at Faraday Future. Now in his seventh year with the company, he handles the entirety of its strategic roadmap, which includes overseeing the business plan, mobility initiatives, manufacturing strategy, and directing fundraising efforts.

Fundraising is a key part of Gulati’s role: “My proudest professional achievement has been co-leading the public offering, which helped the company raise more than $1bn through a listing on NASDAQ,” he says.

With over 20 years of success in the technology and automotive industries, Gulati is an accomplished executive with a track record of scaling businesses. He has successfully led a public offering and held leadership roles to drive growth and expansion at several companies globally. In recognition of his industry contributions, Gulati was selected for the coveted Business Insider list of EV Industry Power Players.

Gulati holds a bachelor's degree in computer science and an MBA from the Indian School of Business.

Having grown up in India, Gulati has always had a deep affinity for the environment. This draw of environmental stewardship was heightened when Gulati and his wife were expecting their first child. “I had a sense of urgency to contribute to technology that could help slow climate change and create a better world for our children to grow up in,” he explained.

“I explored numerous fields, including renewable energy, smart grids and energy storage, before focusing on EVs and finding

Faraday Future. I immediately clicked with the company as it had such a bold vision and fit the environmentally-focused technological approach I was seeking. My journey into the auto industry has been quite unusual – almost accidental.”

Faraday Future: driving the EV industry

“Climate change is the defining challenge of our time, and transportation is one of the largest contributors to it,” says Gulati. “At the same time, the world cannot slow down. We need more growth, more productivity, more time to commit to our passions. So, at Faraday Future, we've been working on the intersection of these problems - of clean mobility and climate change on one

“We were founded with the mission to help people live, move, and breathe more freely – and that's one of the things that drives a lot of us”

PRASHANT GULATI VICE PRESIDENT OF STRATEGY, FARADAY FUTURE

hand, and helping people lead productive, connected lives on the other.”

Faraday Future has taken the first step towards achieving that mission by building the FF 91, which Gulati believes is the most connected, comfortable, and technologically advanced electric car in the world. The company achieved start of production of the FF 91 in California and plans to sell it through a direct sales model in its dual home bases of the US and China.

“The vision of the company is much more than building and selling electric cars, though,” Gulati tells us. “We want to engage our users, build a community, and offer internet and AI services throughout the vehicle lifecycle.”

PRASHANT GULATI

TITLE: VICE PRESIDENT OF STRATEGY

INDUSTRY: MOTOR VEHICLE MANUFACTURING

LOCATION: UNITED STATES

Prashant Gulati is the esteemed Vice President of Strategy at Faraday Future. Now in his seventh year with the company, he handles the entirety of its strategic roadmap, which includes overseeing the business plan, mobility initiatives, manufacturing strategy, and directing fundraising efforts.

With over 20 years of success in the technology and automotive industries, Gulati is an accomplished executive with a track record of scaling businesses. He has successfully led a public offering and held leadership roles to drive growth and expansion at several companies globally. In recognition of his industry contributions, Gulati was selected for the coveted Business Insider list of EV Industry Power Players.

Gulati holds a bachelor's degree in computer science and an MBA from the Indian School of Business.

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JVIS USA: BRINGING IDEAS TO LIFE IN THE EV INDUSTRY

In an exclusive interview, Jason Murar, President and CEO of JVIS USA, discusses how JVIS is pioneering the EV industry while supporting Faraday Future

JVIS USA is a world-renowned manufacturing leader boasting unrivalled proficiency across both design and engineering. Blending state-of-the-art technologies with vertically-integrated processes, the company guides a concept from the initial sketch to the final product launch, and everything in between.

By prioritising innovation, JVIS has established itself as a leader in the continuous shift towards electric vehicles (EVs). It specialises in delivering technology and components uniquely optimised for EVs, continuously seeking out novel concepts, technologies, and procedures.

JVIS has also played a vital role in supporting Faraday Future (FF) to unveil their vehicles to the market. Jason Murar, President and CEO of JVIS USA, explains:

“We’ve assisted FF in almost every facet, from the initial product development – where we identified key product innovations for their consumers – all the way through to the actual testing and validation, in compliance with automotive standards for those components and the continuous supply of critical components used in their vehicles.

Advancements in the EV market

Armed with impressive electrical solutions, JVIS employs the latest technology, such as capacitive touch surfaces and smart panels.

Murar says: “In the EV market, you see a lot of change with smart panels, which are now highly integrated into both the exterior and interior of vehicles.”

JVIS is committed to leading the development of the EV industry, particularly as it plays a large part in the company’s growth. “Our customers see how we’re taking static panels and turning them into functional panels, giving expanded use of the vehicle,” Murar explains. “These components include sensors and software to increase the user’s experience, such as soft-close doors and ambient lighting.

“JVIS’s continued investment in innovation and growth will enable us to make significant contributions to this dynamic field. If you are looking to turn your product ideas into reality, contact us today to learn more about how JVIS technology can help.”

Throwing out the rule book in electric vehicle development

Faraday Future started from scratch, taking a “clean sheet approach” to building electric cars. Faraday Future’s technology innovations include its proprietary Variable Platform Architecture (VPA), propulsion system, and Internet, Autonomous Driving, and Intelligence (I.A.I.) systems. The company has approximately 660 patents across these areas.

“So far, the company has invested billions of dollars in creating industry-leading product and technology,” recounts Gulati. “Building cars is a capital-intensive business, and we've had our ups and downs.

“The way I would describe the ethos of the company is one of perseverance and tenacity; one of never, ever giving up in the service of our mission.”

FF 91: A new species reformatting the future of mobility

The FF 91 has been designed as an all-ability car, possessing the handling of a sedan, the space, reliability, and comfort of an SUV, and the top-level performance and driving dynamics of a sports car.

“A lot of people liken it to a Rolls-Royce, with increased comfort, connectivity, and performance ” Gulati tells us – and the statistics certainly speak for themselves.

video conferencing, and watch movies or live sports without driver distraction”

“There's a lot that has gone into developing and thinking about the design, driving experience, and the overall user experience” says Gulati who is incredibly passionate about the vehicle.

“There is no electric car in our segment right now – competing with Rolls-Royce,

Bentley, Maybach – so we're quite excited about being the first EV of our kind, and we think it's going to redefine industry standards. The first ultra-tech luxury electric vehicle.”

Faraday Future: the leader in luxury electric vehicles

WATCH

NOW

“We are building what we believe is the most connected, most comfortable, most technologicallyadvanced electric car in the world: we call it the FF 91”

PRASHANT GULATI VICE PRESIDENT OF STRATEGY, FARADAY FUTURE

The technology under the bonnet Faraday Future describes the technology behind the FF 91 within three pillars:

1. Variable Platform Architecture

“Think of it like a Lego,” Gulati explains: “You can change the size of the platform and build different vehicles of different sizes for different purposes. You can put different motor and powertrain configurations. This skateboard-like platform approach enables us to build multiple vehicles on the same platform, reduce time to cost, time to market, and more.”

2. In-house Propulsion Technology

Faraday Future has developed a proprietary inverter design and propulsion system. The drive units are fully integrated with the inverter, and transmission and control unit to enable leading horsepower, efficiency, and acceleration.

3. Internet, Autonomous Driving, and Intelligence (I.A.I.)

“Our software, internet, and AI development is the most important of these pillars,” says Gulati. “That's where the company shines compared to all of our competition.” Faraday Future’s commitment to these technologies supports the user experience in the car, both practically and luxuriously, ensuring seamless user experience through different elements, one of which is advanced voice control to manage complex queries without driver or passenger distraction.

FF 91

The FF 91 has:

• 3 motors

• 1,050 horsepower

• 0 to 60 in 2.27 seconds

• Class leading EPA and CARB certified range of 381 miles

• Charge Time (20-80%): 25 min @ 200kW DC Fast Charge

• Overall length: 5,250mm/ 206.7in

• Up to three 5G modems and a newly developed operating system, allowing customers to use apps and stay fully connected

• Industry-leading 49 inches of rear seat legroom

• 60-degrees rear seat recline in NASA-inspired, zero-gravity seats

Supply chain management

Faraday Future invested a lot in creating its own technology. “Some companies basically source parts and build a car, essentially becoming assemblers,” explains Gulati. “At Faraday Future, we've invested a lot of time and capital on creating our own technology.”

Faraday Future has strong partnerships with, and relies on, key suppliers to ensure the FF 91 is completed in a timely manner and with the high quality its users will demand. The company was affected to a lesser degree by supply chain issues during the pandemic because of planned low volumes at launch, and because many of the parts are created by suppliers uniquely

for the FF 91, and so we don't compete with others for those. Notwithstanding, the company has taken lessons from that period and gotten even more diligent about planning and ordering across the supply chain.

In terms of scale, Faraday Future employs 590 people across the US and China, and with its production plant in California the company will ultimately be capable of producing approximately 10,000 vehicles per year. The current manufacturing setup is asset light, and the supply chain is built with expansion in mind: if needed, the company has a contract manufacturing partner for this anticipated expansion, allowing early-stage flexibility.

What does the future hold for Faraday Future?

“The company's DNA is completely global,” Gulati says: “We've designed and defined the product with an abundance of cutting-edge technology to cater to a global audience.”

The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, where much of the engineering and manufacturing takes place, but it also has roots in China – home to a Faraday Future engineering centre. The FF 91 will be initially launched in the US, followed by China, before being launched globally.

Distribution and beyond

“Looking to the next 18 months, we are very focused on the FF 91 production, sales, and

“Climate change is the defining challenge of our time, and transportation is one of the largest contributors to it”

PRASHANT GULATI VICE PRESIDENT OF STRATEGY, FARADAY FUTURE

deliveries,” Gulati explains. “We're going to be scaling our operation, ramping up supply chain – that's the key focus area making the FF 91 successful.

Gulati believes that the value chain disruption we’re seeing now is going to continue, not only accelerating on the product and technology front, but on the sales side, too, as industry sales volumes increase.

“In the distribution model, quite a few OEMs have expressed a desire to sell directly to customers” Gulati explains.

“For the industry, this transition away from ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) vehicles is going to impact sales economics. Today, auto dealers mostly earn margins from selling auto parts and services, and financial services, and that's going to change. Maintenance and parts and services replacement in EVs is far less than ICE vehicles. So, we expect to see changes on the business side as well as on the product and technology side.”

Despite this value chain disruption and anticipated global economic slowdown, Gulati himself doesn’t forecast a slowdown for Faraday Future, citing research from McKinsey that shows the luxury vehicle market (vehicles $150,000 and above) is projected to grow significantly over the next 10 years.

FF 91: The mould for the future

Looking to the longer-term future, Faraday Future has ensured built-in capability to add further models to its Variable Platform Architecture.

“We have plans for our next model –we call it the FF 81 – which will share 60% commonality of parts with the FF 91,” Gulati says. “Although, of course, such future developments are dependent on a number of things, including fundraising.”

What is the future for the electric vehicle industry?

To promote long-term growth and success within the electric vehicle industry, Gulati says the focus is – and should remain –on batteries, reducing cost of materials, recycling, and developing new chemistries.

“Since 2010, the price of batteries has dropped significantly – until about 2019,” Gulati recounts. “In the last few years, battery and raw material prices have risen again because of supply chain disruptions, due to the pandemic.”

The second focus that Gulati expects of the industry is in EV infrastructure.

“We are seeing significant regulatory support to promote the transition to electric vehicles,” he says. “Governments are allocating a lot of capital and policy support towards education, charging infrastructure, and local sourcing of electric cars, so we anticipate that will continue.”

The future is on its way – and it looks electric.

“We need more growth, more productivity, and more time to commit to our passions”

PRASHANT GULATI VICE PRESIDENT OF STRATEGY, FARADAY FUTURE

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