Christian Meinerding, HiveMQ CEO.
getty
Companies quickly roll out sustainability initiatives and environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards as pressure mounts to solve increasingly complex environmental challenges. Gartner research shows that 87% of executive leaders will increase investment in sustainability over the next two years.
Bessemer Venture Partners said in the State of the Cloud 2023: “We are witnessing the rise of entrepreneurs building green energy technologies and an emerging ecosystem of renewable energy players—including installers, developers and consumers—supporting the climate ecosystem. To support this growing green economy, we predict the emergence of new cloud software tailor-made to power the energy transition.”
The climate ecosystem is growing—from renewable energy and smart devices that save natural resources to software that manages energy usage. These technologies depend on data to assess, monitor and execute sustainability improvements. Success depends on a comprehensive digital transformation strategy with a strong data foundation at the helm.
Data allows companies to identify inefficiencies in production lines or supply chains. Laying the foundation for successful digital transformation means setting the business up for success with any use case: real-time visibility into leaks or waste, tracking items along the supply chain and reducing scrap on a production line. None of this is possible without data.
Let’s examine how data drives sustainability initiatives and climate tech and the technology needed to deploy IoT use cases that balance profit and sustainability.
Gaining Real-Time Visibility Into Sustainability Metrics
Real-time visibility into sustainability metrics allows businesses to track their progress toward sustainability goals, identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions to drive further innovation.
Consider a vice president of digital transformation tasked with making their factory “green” or “net zero.” The first step is to get a baseline; the business doesn’t yet have that real-time visibility into the right metrics at its fingertips.
They must collect data on energy usage, emissions, machine processes, water consumption, waste generation, scrap, etc. They likely need to overcome long-standing issues to access data, such as silos, legacy systems, integration challenges and a lack of in-house talent to solve these problems.
The first step is laying a data foundation that can gather all that data, unify it, and send it to a database, cloud or enterprise system for further analysis. A company implementing IoT for sustainability would typically have multiple layers of technology and infrastructure, including:
Devices layer: This layer consists of physical devices installed in the company’s facilities, such as sensors and controllers, to collect data on sustainability metrics. These devices may include energy meters, water flow, air quality and waste management sensors.
Edge layer: This layer includes edge devices responsible for processing and filtering data from the devices layer before sending it to the cloud. Edge devices can perform analytics, reduce data volume and provide real-time alerts for anomalies or threshold breaches. Edge devices include gateways and brokers to move the data.
Cloud layer: This layer includes the cloud infrastructure, where the data the devices collect is stored and analyzed. The cloud infrastructure may include databases, data warehouses and data lakes. It also includes the necessary tools for processing and analyzing the data, such as machine learning algorithms and business intelligence software.
Application layer: This layer includes the applications built on the cloud infrastructure. These applications may include dashboards, visualization tools and reporting tools that provide real-time insights into sustainability metrics. Applications can also include analytics, automation and optimization tools that drive sustainable operations.
Integration layer: This layer includes integrating IoT data with other enterprise systems, such as ERP, CRM or EAM. Integration enables cross-functional collaboration, automated workflows and comprehensive reporting on sustainability performance. It can be achieved using APIs, messaging protocols or data pipelines.
How To Get The Most Out Of Your Data
The architecture above lays the right foundation for use cases, from improving sustainability in manufacturing processes to offering new, connected products that help the industry save natural resources. Understanding that trustworthy data is the key, you can build your offerings to be incredibly dependable. Here are some ways you can ensure you’re on the right path.
Prioritizing a single source of truth for IoT data: To centralize data, it’s important to incorporate a unified namespace or similar framework within the IoT architecture. This ensures that all data, whether raw or processed, is accurate and reliable.
Bridging the gap between IT/OT data: Find software and technology solutions that can integrate data from the information technology and operational technology departments. This includes deploying interoperable software platforms, implementing standard communication protocols (e.g., MQTT, OPC UA) and leveraging IoT technologies for data collection and analysis.
Enforcing data standards: Creating data policies helps the organization’s data consumers understand how data is formatted and its relationship to other data systems. This provides peace of mind that high-quality data is delivered to the right place in the right format.
Securing data pipelines: Use TLS/SSL encryption, robust authentication methods and access controls to keep the data secure and only available to authorized parties.
Using scalable solutions: To maximize your present and future data sources, ensure your chosen solutions can scale with your business. Reusing older messaging technologies and protocols will not work for many IoT use cases and will require modern solutions to be effective.
Conclusion
The potential for driving sustainability through digital transformation is limitless. Innovative organizations looking to build connected products have a huge competitive advantage. There are various sustainability use cases, such as reducing manufacturing scrap, monitoring the supply chain for disruption, enabling electric vehicles and more.
Sustainability is a top 10 strategic technology trend, but how many companies have set themselves up for success with an IT architecture and data foundation that can drive these initiatives? Now is the time for executives to invest in digital solutions to lay the groundwork for data-driven sustainability use cases and future-proof their businesses.
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