How Digital Twins are driving sustainability in 2022?

To have a sustainable operation is one of the main goals for smart industries, and the Digital Twin technology can be a great ally to accelerate this process. Since the 1980s industrial leaders search for opportunities to decrease their carbon footprint in order to mitigate climate change. In those years of searching for solutions, they found out that the answer could be in technological innovations.?

The concern with carbon emissions is shared by both governments and society. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) industries are 21% of global greenhouse gas emissions, only behind Electricity and Heat Production (responsible for 25% of carbon emissions).?

In industries, greenhouse gases emissions happen for chemical, metallurgical, and mineral transformation processes. Although this data of 21% of emissions don’t include the burn of fossil fuels for energy, this is primarily the source of emissions in industrial facilities.

It is with this challenge to mitigate climate change and the search for a more sustainable operation, that worldwide industries agreed to zero carbon emissions until 2050. Together with that, green deals and carbon taxes are being applied as ESG (Environmental - Social - Governance) measures.?

But how Digital Twins can help with this challenge??

It is precisely this question that Future Digital Twin, a conference that will take place between March 29-30, will try to answer in Panel 5: Digital Twin and ESG - The role of technology in meeting net-zero commitments, in which I’ll be attending as a panelist (and you can register here to see further information).?

Some data that will be brought up in the conference is optimizing operations as one of the main pillars of decarbonization, which according to McKinsey & Company is followed by building a sustainable design and investing in balanced portfolios. In fact, they estimate that:?

“A 10 percent increase in production efficiency delivers a 4 percent reduction in emission intensity, all else being constant.[…] Predictive maintenance and automated condition-monitoring can reduce planned interventions and extend runs, improving stability and reducing emissions.”

The first step to decarbonize operations is to optimize operations because one of the main moments that greenhouse gases are emitted in industrial plants is when they repeatedly fail, or when you need to shut down the plant. Therefore, guaranteeing the asset's integrity not only brings more safety and efficiency but also lowers carbon emissions.?

It is in this context of operation improvement that Digital Twins, now a long-known 4.0 technology for industrial leaders, thrive.?

In this scenario, it is not a surprise that the global Digital Twin market is projected to reach US$35.5 billion by 2026, and in comparison to other Industry 4.0 technologies, the market is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the 2022-2026 period.?

With the possibility of monitoring conditions bringing together asset integrity management and high production efficiency, the technology is the closest thing we have to fully control what happens inside an industrial facility. If you want to learn more about this topic, you’re welcome to watch Panel 5 at 5:45 pm (GMT) at Future Digital Twin. Hope to see you there!?