Given the emergence of a values-driven consumer, corporate brands are looking at how they live their values and meet ESG goals. Living these goals means changing their processes and business models. It’s not easy for companies that have historically created their products with a focus on maximum efficiency and maximum profit to think about investments that allow them to modify their supply chains and balance healthy profits while demonstrating action on improving the environment.
Leveraging evolving technologies could be key for achieving sustainability, which is quickly ... [+]
In order to get some fresh perspective I interviewed Judith Wiese, Chief People and Sustainability Officer at Siemens AG.
Jeff Fromm: How can digital twins be used to accelerate sustainability in product design and reduce risks?
Judith Wiese: Digital twin technology provides a tremendous opportunity to achieve sustainability targets. Digital twins enable us to do more with fewer resources: from designing a new product to planning the production and manufacturing it — even all the way to repairing and recycling.
We need to apply ecological thinking when designing products. As a first step, it’s necessary to create transparency while tracking carbon emissions — not only during production, but from the initial design phase through the entire supply chain. Our Green Digital Twin application uses information from the entire supply chain, including sourced parts, tools, and devices. It creates transparency with regard to both the current and future carbon footprint while enabling easy and early calculation of emissions.
In addition, this application allows maximum flexibility for designing parts in a way that enables low-carbon repair and remanufacturing while still meeting the requirements for materials and processes. This thorough approach results in efficient and durable products.
Fromm: What tools are being developed to allow companies to manage and reduce their carbon footprint?
Wiese: Climate change is rapidly transforming our world, and its consequences are far reaching. It knows no national borders, nor is it limited to specific sectors. The connection to industrial operations becomes very clear when companies look at their products’ carbon footprint. Although dependent on the industry, typically a high percentage of CO2 is generated within a company’s supply chain while a company’s own operations generally account for a far smaller share. At Siemens, 99% of our emissions are Scope 3 — meaning they arise within the supply chain or during the use phase of our products and services. The solution lies in overarching cooperation among manufacturers, suppliers, customers and partners — in other words, in ecosystems.
Together with like-minded partners, we founded Estainium — an open and decentralized network for sharing carbon-footprint data in a trustworthy manner. The first Siemens software developed specifically for this purpose, SiGreen, is based on energy-saving blockchain technology. SiGreen enables companies to implement targeted reduction measures that achieve quantifiable impact. In addition, we’ve recently started working with sustamize GmbH, a leading climate-tech company, to gain access to CO2 emissions data for materials and energy. This data-driven approach allows companies to manage the carbon footprints of their products during the development phase, which attributes to climate-neutral manufacturing.
Another area where Siemens is applying technology with purpose is within the built environment. We provide building technologies, such as sensors and building management systems, as a way to gauge energy usage and better understand how to optimize for efficiency. For Siemens and our partners, sustainability is becoming a decisive competitive factor.
Fromm: What can companies learn from Siemens in the area of product innovation for sustainability solutions, which on the one hand serve the common good but on the other hand must also offer a corresponding return of investment?
Wiese: Sustainability is at the heart of our business activities. It’s in our DNA. Manufacturers are increasingly looking to get ahead of the curve by reducing their carbon footprint and their manufacturing costs while increasing productivity and profit. Achieving these goals enables companies to use sustainability as a competitive edge. Sustainability and digitalization go hand in hand as growth drivers of the future and digitalization is a key enabler for sustainable transformation. And companies that offer the right technologies to help customers to become more efficient and sustainable will take the lead.
