Digitalisation as key to ESG-goals: No sustainability success without transparent, visible data

As the world embraces the digital revolution, it is vital to recognize that digitalisation holds the power to drive sustainability initiatives forward. Transparency becomes the catalyst for change as digitalising sustainability-related data unveils opportunities for energy and cost savings, as well as reduced carbon emissions. However, many business leaders still face the challenge of insufficient data.

The ongoing digitalisation, as we all know, has a definite energy-draining side to it – especially in the form of server farms that have to handle the ever-growing global data traffic. But as always, the antidote lies in the poison. Because digitalisation is also the key to reaching sustainability goals. Visibility is the magic word: Digitalising sustainability-relevant data is the only way to make it transparent, and therefore understand potential for saving: saving energy and therefore costs, saving CO2, and so on. The connection is obviously pretty easy to make. Or is it?

In a new IBM study, 41% of participating business leaders name insufficient data as the biggest obstacle on their companies’ paths to advancing in ESG matters. But how can that bottleneck be tackled fast and efficiently in the print and packaging industry?

Visualise your energy data

Now that summer is coming, energy data is even more valuable in the printing industry: Do you for example know how energy-efficient the air conditioning in your pressroom is? Because in the pressroom, when it comes to temperature and humidity, constant conditions are the best prerequisites for an optimal print result. Soon, air conditioning systems will be running at full speed again. But only if you collect and visualise energy data will you be able to get full transparency on your company’s biggest energy guzzlers.

VisuEnergy X: Energy Management System optimised for the printing and packaging industry

For this purpose, we are offering the energy management system VisuEnergy X. The SaaS solution offers the opportunity to improve your company’s environmental footprint, production costs and thus, your overall competitiveness. The advantage of VisuEnergy X over other energy management systems is that it has been specifically optimised for the printing and packaging industry.

It includes:

• Analysis and display of the consumption history for all recorded assemblies of the machine depending on the production performance
• Display of the current press speed and formation of the key figures energy consumption and CO2 emissions per 1,000 printed sheets and CO2

Today, it can’t be enough to know how much energy is consumed in order to derive targeted improvement measures. It is much more important to know where, when, how long and in what way this energy is consumed.

How to fulfil the obligation of offering climate-neutral packaging?

Of course measuring and visualising is the basis for deciding on the right savings measures, as well as then monitoring the implementation of these measures. According to the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection, when implementing energy management with a software such as VisuEnergy X in place, you are able to potentially save up to 30% in energy costs – regardless of industry or company size.

The printing business is generally very energy-intensive, for instance through the use of highly energy-consuming dryer technologies that are often necessary to enable ideal printing results. And still, there is not only increasing legal and societal pressure, but a general obligation, to offer packaging that has been produced as climate-neutral as possible. VisuEnergy X is best equipped to help those in the printing and packaging industry to fulfil these requirements.

Learn more about VisuEnergy X and request your personal online demo: https://digitalisation.koenig-bauer.com/en/networking-processes/energy-management/visuenergy-x/