How the Internet of Things can help to fight the climate crisis. And why we need a joint effort to succeed.

How much energy do we need to provide comfort for people indoors? Where can we save energy on heating, AC or lighting? Leaftech is able to answer all these questions easily – with the help of a digital twin. By feeding it with weather insights, energy consumption data and user behavior, Leaftech anticipates demands and adjust the parameters proactively. The Berlin-based start-up is not only part of our Telekom ecosystem, but a good example of how the IoT can help us protect the environment. As a father of two, the topic of the state of our climate is close to my heart.

Digitization in general, and especially the Internet of Things, can be of great help to fight climate change is good news – particularly when we look at the current state of our planet: According to BP, fossil fuel consumption is still on the rise. Bloomberg even shows a substantially negative impact on our climate because we chemically fertilize our crops. Many academic studies point out the perils of a heavy reliance on livestock. We increasingly waste limited resources. We reach Earth Overshoot Day earlier with each rotation around the sun. It marks the day in which we have consumed all resources our planet could possibly renew in one year. In 2020, we reached this tipping point on August 22nd. And without the pandemic? That would have been even earlier. A trend we have to stop – not even considering our still growing population according to recent UN data.

While customer preferences are changing towards sustainable goods and practices, as Capgemini points out, the fight against man-made climate change will last – and the fight is very broad indeed. I am incredibly proud of the Green Pioneers initiative that was launched at Deutsche Telekom. With their involvement in this group, many of my colleagues are specifically committed to sustainable projects both inside and outside the company and show what we can all contribute to make the world a bit more sustainable. Considering the challenges we have to overcome, and looking at the different key players and factors, we have to leverage our combined forces to make lasting progress.

Value chains become value loops

This is where the IoT comes into play. If used to its full potential, the IoT will support us in two ways: firstly, by optimizing processes in order to save resources and cut back on emissions. Secondly, it will support us by replacing linear business models with sustainable circular models.

What do I mean by that? Today, the creation of value is mostly organizied in linear value chains. To overcome climate change, we soon need a fundamental speed of change – from linear to circular economies. For example by recycling products and components and making better use of the resources, eg. by reusing them or utilizing them over a longer lifetime. One example of this is our sustainable smartphone cycle. There, used devices are professionally refurbished and resold at an attractive price. That approach applies to services as well: "Rent instead of buy" models save resources, reduce electronic waste and help lower CO2 emissions resulting from production. After each cycle of use, the product is evaluated and either fit for another cycle, or stripped apart in order to serve as part of another product’s cycle.

Three IoT solutions to protect the environment

So how could the IoT help us specifically? Here are three examples of how the IoT can help reduce our everyday impact on the environment: 

1.    Route optimization and predictive maintenance

There are many ways to optimize supply chains across industries. Digitizing freight documentation helps fight paper waste and cut down on process times. With improved IoT-based telematics, fuel consumption can be reduced to a great extent. The same goes for route guidance and tracking. These solutions not only help to shorten routes and make them more efficient, but to analyze driving styles, exactly adjust ETAs and provide information about upcoming maintenance. This leads to more efficient business cases with on-point just-in-time-productions as well.                                                                                          

2.    Optimize building automation with a focus on energy consumption

Routes and traffic also play a major role indoors. With sensors in buildings, we can measure CO2 levels, movements and room temperature in real-time. This provides transparency, improves air quality and makes for healthier work environments, a more efficient use of space and less energy consumption due to on-demand lighting and AC. By that, we save costs in terms of facility management, reduce the building’s CO2 footprint and improve its environmental balance. Our “Building Monitoring & Analytics“ solution is a good example of that.

 Smart office building, image courtesy of Unsplash

3.    Cut down on food waste 

Up to 30 percent of all the food produced worldwide goes to waste according to the WWF. One of the reasons for that are unreliable cold chains. Fruit, vegetables, fish and dairy products must be transported in refrigerated trucks and are spoiled when not properly stored under certain temperatures. With IoT trackers, we are able to exactly monitor the cold chain and conditions of the goods. The devices check the location, register vibrations, measure temperature – and if used to it’s full potential – readjust accordingly. Supermarkets alone could save around seven percent of wasted food this way.

The future of Green IoT: a five-step action plan  

To help the IoT achieve its projected environmental impact, there are a couple of things I would love to see happen:

1.    Standardization of technologies: Interoperability

Digitization in general, and specifically the IoT, are “systems of systems.” We have to simplify how these systems communicate with each other. The IoT only fully develops its strength when systems can communicate with each other without disruption and in a seamless and secure manner. I mentioned it before, and I’ll stress it again: Interoperability is key for this to happen and thus standardization around protocols and the like is pivotal to the success of the IoT.

2.    Harmonization of regulations

Today, the global regulatory landscape differs widely. That hampers global rollouts. Advancing the IoT is an global effort that needs a clear and overarching framework for all players. This is not limited to IoT-specific regulations, but associated topics as well. Examples are the availability of scarce resources (frequencies, numbers and until IPv6 was introduced, IP addresses), privacy and security. We need to tackle all of them. Together.

3.    Rally adoption

We as IoT ecosystem players must rally around lowering adoption barriers to a much higher degree than that of today. This is only one of the motivations for our IoT Hub, but it might become the most important one. Making the IoT widely accepted should not be a tug-of-war, but a matter of equal goals meant to advance diverse industries, society as a whole and the environment with it.

4.    Integration of digital strategies

All of these overarching goals are well and good, but it all starts with the singular enterprises. Many companies are still missing a clearly defined strategy for their digital transformation. And even if they do have a digital strategy, it is probably not tightly integrated into their overall corporate strategy. What companies need is a digital strategy fully integrated into their general agenda – developed for the long run but executed here and now. We typically advice our customers and partners to think big start small and scale fast.

5.    Make the whole cake larger, not just your piece

All of the above pay tribute to one thing: Our goal (speaking for Telekom IoT, but hopefully for the market as well) has to be to drive the market as a whole and not just get our slice of it. There is enough business for all, with widely differing customer needs and new business cases emerging every day that the IoT could add new customer value to. All the while, sustainability is becoming an ever more important differentiator for businesses.

In 2021, a lot of businesses will focus on regaining their balance after a difficult 2020. I am confident that IoT will play a significant part in that stabilization going forward – if we as an industry enable it. I am looking forward to that future.