EDITORIAL
STEVENGISLAM
|
The Long and Winding Road M uch of Europe is now, tentatively, beginning to emerge from this year’s extended winter cold, much of which was spent under lockdown, and things are starting to resemble a kind of normal, with vaccinations finally being rolled out, shops, bars and restaurants stuttering back to life, and economies revving back up again. While a glimmer of light at the end of the long Covid tunnel is great of course, the world continues to turn and continues to warm, and the race to green up our industries is still far from over. Recent news that carbon emissions levels have reached new record highs despite the pandemic, and that fossil fuels are still being more heavily subsidised than renewables, should be met by businesses and consumers alike as a sobering reminder that words are not enough and sustainability is more than just a nice thing to shoehorn into a press release. While platitudes make good PR, they won’t mean much to sweltering future generations with waterlogged homes having to deal with the sharp end of an ecological fallout. The pressure needs to remain on governments and businesses to keep ploughing ahead with the transition. Of course, energy is not the only transition in town right now. Lest we forget, we are still in the midst of Industry 4.0 which means connectivity is king and CEOs have a lot to think about. This edition of Industry Europe puts these things into focus as we take these issues and apply them across four sectors. For many businesses, SMEs especially, the green transition presents a host of opportunities but also a baffling array of new technologies, methodologies, and potential pitfalls. The issue of climate change and how individuals, businesses, industrial sectors, and governments can adapt to it is immense - even daunting - given the scale of the issue and the high stakes involved. When faced with a problem so massive, we humans can sometimes freeze on the spot, like rabbits in the proverbial headlights, not doing anything for fear of the wrong thing.
In late May I spoke to Lord Adair Turner, the co-chair of London-based global thinktank the Energy Transitions Commission, to discuss two reports the group had recently published on electrification and green hydrogen. Both these reports throw new light in the direction the road to net-zero could take. He argues that the development of clean electricity and clean hydrogen together make up the large part of how we can achieve a zero-carbon economy. It was a wide-ranging interview, covering everything from carbon capture to cobalt, synthetic meats to methane, and most importantly offering some practical insights into ways we can reach the targets laid out in the Paris Agreement. Read the full article, ‘Making Net-Zero Possible’, on page 6. Our Healthcare focus feature comes from George I’ons, who is Head of Product Strategy and Insights at Owen Mumford Pharmaceutical Services. In his article, ‘Let’s Talk Sustainability and Single-Use in the Pharma and Medical Sectors’, he takes this theme of sustainability and examines it more closely through the lens of the Healthcare sector. According to the World Bank, Healthcare currently accounts for 5% of global carbon emissions. The sector faces a unique set of challenges when it comes to sustainability and finds itself performing a balancing act between waste reduction and the push towards a circular economy, with the need to keep patients and healthcare workers safe. This delicate balance is all being managed to the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has only served to highlight all these issues further. For infection-control reasons, most medical products and devices are not made to be reused. This means that 90% of the sector’s waste is made up of single-use, disposable products, which are typically incinerated. While one obvious option would be sterilisation, the process often uses harmful chemicals and demands high energy use, thus shifting the environmental impact somewhere else, rather than eradicating it. I’ons argues that the situation leaves medical product manufacturers with just
three viable options to tackle sustainability issues. Find out more on page 8. We have only just begun to see the economic and societal changes brought on by the pandemic and the ensuing national lockdowns. This edition’s Consumer Goods focus story – ‘The Pandemic has Increased “Conscious Consumption” Habits’ – saw IE’s Ash Jones talk to Accenture’s Kim De Maeseneer about some of those changes in consumer behaviour. Research by the company has shown that a noticeable shift in consumer priorities has taken place and that throughout the pandemic, consumers became more acutely aware of the environmental and social impact created by the products they buy. According to the research, issues such as food waste, plastic bags and packaging, as well as labelling standards have become far higher priorities. Whilst the trend towards sustainability has been something of a hot topic for a while now, De Maeseneer says that the pandemic brought these issues to the fore and that ever-more-vocal consumers are now expecting more than just low prices. Check out the full article on page 10. The Transport and Logistics focus looks at the way that Predictive Analytics – the use of historical data, algorithms and machine learning to predict the probability of future outcomes - is changing the supply chain sector. Written by Shippeo’s Northern Europe Director, Dennis van Bodegom, ‘How Predictive Analytics is Reshaping Transportation Management’ looks at the ways in which actors along supply chains are benefitting from the technology: in terms of day-to-day operations but also in building growth strategies, reducing expenses, enabling better stock, time and delivery management, and ultimately gaining a competitive advantage as a consequence. Van Bodegom argues that as connectivity increases, and the Internet of Things continues to roll out, Predictive Analytics as a tool is becoming more powerful than ever providing customers with real-time ETAs, and heightened visibility. He goes on to say that the ability to use and effectively incorporate it into planning and execution phases will become a major separator of organisations. The full article n is on Page 12. Industry Europe 3
