Why manufacturers are uniquely positioned to improve their sustainability efforts

Earth Day was born in 1970, making April 22, 2021, the 51st annual global celebration of the modern environmental movement, and its truly a special year.

That's one of the reasons why we thought it's good timing to share our perspective "Why manufacturers are uniquely positioned to improve their sustainability efforts" using IIoT technology.

Sustainability has long been viewed as a zero-sum contest between economic viability and environmental consideration. Sustainability hasn’t traditionally been at the forefront of manufacturers’ business plans. Previously, the manufacturing space separated sustainability and manufacturing; it didn’t understand that sustainability not only trickles down to the manufacturing level, but that it’s at the manufacturing level that companies lay the groundwork for improved sustainability.

Back in 2011, the UN Global Compact Study showed that 93 percent of CEOs believed that sustainability was the crucial factor for business success. Moreover, CEOs were convinced that in the next 10 years sustainability would be completely linked to the core business of enterprises – within all systems and processes and spreading to all supply chains and branches. Now, exactly 10 years later, we have already started the next industrial revolution that will help us to answer important questions around how manufacturing improve their sustainable efforts.

Improved sustainability efforts also go hand in hand with operational excellence. Furthermore, using Azure services, manufacturers can build solutions with a modern, comprehensive tech stack all underpinned by a common data model, improving time to value, lowering costs, and increasing agility.

At its core, green manufacturing encourages environmentally friendly manufacturing operations commensurate to less waste, pollution, and harm, and in return, the use of fewer natural resources and the reuse of various materials. All manufacturers have the opportunity to emphasize the importance of drawing energy from renewable sources (e.g., hydropower, solar, wind, etc.), utilizing specific technologies and deploying best practices to ameliorate energy efficiency, reduce greenhouse gases and pollution, and conserve natural resources.

Read our new whitepaper "Sustainability within manufacturing" to see how digitalization of manufacturing is opening up the possibilities of safer, cheaper, and more environmentally conscious operational decision making.

Dr. Geoff Staneff & Egbert Schroeer