Why Digital Transformation and Sustainable Manufacturing Goals Should Be Aligned

Digital technologies should be viewed as the key to accelerating sustainable manufacturing progress rather than as two opposing forces.

Advances in digitalisation, connectivity and computing power mean manufacturers have access to more information than ever. A typical factory creates around 1TB (1,000GB) of production data every day. However, less than 1% is being analysed and acted upon. 

Recognising this, manufacturing companies are moving from simply collecting data to harnessing it to improve operational and financial performance. This shift is the foundation of almost all digital transformation strategies.

Additionally, rising investments in digital tools like data analytics, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and virtual models are helping companies increase efficiencies, lower costs and reduce energy consumption. 

Other positive outcomes include streamlined and simplified workflows, reduced stockholding, optimised material and resource use, improved equipment uptime and longevity and more accurate demand planning.  

While these outcomes all help improve environmental performance, this alone won’t see organisations achieving their ambitious manufacturing sustainability goals. For that, manufacturers must place data and digital tools at the core of their sustainable transformation strategies.

Unprecedented access to real-time and historic data enables companies to better measure, analyse and understand their environmental impact, establish benchmarks, track progress against realistic goals and guide future action. 

Insights like these allow organisations to contextualise, prioritise, plan, optimise, and evidence sustainable practices. It also ensures environmental considerations are a guiding principle of all decision-making, not simply an afterthought.

Yet, the full power of a data-driven approach to sustainability is only now being realised as organisations start to assess their environmental impact beyond the factory gate.

Tackling supply chain carbon emissions is the most taxing sustainability challenge companies face. What is referred to as Scope 3 emissions include all those released through a given company’s indirect upstream and downstream activities. These range from material extraction and distribution of finished goods to the use of sold products and waste disposal. 

Scope 3 emissions typically account for more than 70% of an organisation’s carbon footprint, so any manufacturing company serious about sustainability needs to be addressing them. Yet, their breadth and scope make them difficult to calculate and reduce. The complexity and diversity of global industrial supply chains make this even trickier for manufacturers to do.

Leading companies measuring, reporting, and reducing their Scope 3 emissions, including AstraZeneca, Ford, General Mills, Ikea and Unilever, all highlight the integral role of data and digital technologies.

Data gathering and analysis help build an accurate and complete picture of carbon emissions for manufacturers by making previously hidden data visible, breaking down silos across the value chain, consolidating information, and streamlining and simplifying processes.

• AstraZeneca is working closely with its key suppliers to support the progression to a low-carbon economy. The development of a common data platform enables suppliers to not only submit data for AstraZeneca’s Scope 3 programme but it can also be used with their other customers. This data is also used by the biopharmaceutical giant to create bespoke sustainability engagement plans for suppliers and to share best practices.
• Bridgestone has developed an end-to-end data platform named CAPPA (Collaborative Advanced Powerful Platform for Analytics) that is used to gain key insights into its operations and informed decisions on current and future strategies. By serving as a single point of truth for decision-making, CAPPA is delivering improvements in a host of areas, from demand forecasting and energy consumption to carbon reporting. 
• BP is combining digital twins of its complex global assets with artificial intelligence to identify opportunities for optimisation and carbon reduction. Technologies such as these are the only way the organisation can manage the more than 50 billion data points it receives weekly from its operating assets globally. Using digital twins to interrogate past data and predict future data, BP estimates it has the opportunity to reduce emissions by around 500,000 tonnes of CO²e annually. 

But it’s not only data being unified. Digitally connecting assets, workers, suppliers, customers and other key partners provides a clearer end-to-end view of supply chains and what happens within them. It also improves collaboration, communication, accountability and reporting. 

• L’Oréal oversees 35 international brands and employs more than 85,000 people. Staying at the leading edge of beauty trends requires all those individuals to share their unique perspectives and insights across time zones and business areas. Doing so in the era of hybrid work means providing employees with the platforms and tools to communicate and share knowledge, from anywhere. 

Furthermore, the combination of these tools with cutting-edge augmented technology can also assist companies in meeting their environmental commitments. L’Oréal, for example, is using Microsoft HoloLens with Microsoft Teams to remotely inspect packaging components and troubleshoot issues on the spot. “It’s clear that avoiding travel to the other side of the planet for a two-hour meeting is an amazing use of technology that will help us meet our sustainability goals,” says Martin Motte, Global Quality, Environment, and Health and Safety Director at L’Oréal.