A better understanding of energy consumption is critical for building a roadmap to Net Zero. Along with transport, electricity and heating fuel consumption will be amongst the biggest contributors to many organisational carbon footprints. Breaking down energy consumption by source will assist in understanding the potential for reduction of consumption on a per service basis. Digital technology can greatly assist in the capture and analysis of this information through measurement using Building Management Systems (BMS) or Internet of Things (IoT) technologies, paired with analysis and insight tools.
Taking advantage of existing BMS or augmenting existing ones offers considerable opportunity for optimisation of how buildings operate. For example through analysis of occupancy of spaces over time it may be possible to change building usage patterns, to reduce the need to heat, cool or light spaces. This in turn may reduce the need for or allow for optimisation of buildings maintenance, again reducing carbon footprint further. Building digital twins of buildings, campuses or entire towns could provide considerable insight as to how spaces and places currently operate, highlighting opportunities to improve usage according to various metrics, including carbon footprint.
The reduction of the use of transport is an obvious candidate for digital technology to play a role in reducing carbon emissions. Most uses of transport involve moving either resources, people or information, in each case there are opportunities to reduce the need for transportation though the use of digital technology.
Moving Resources
In the case of movement of goods or resources adoption of SMART or digital inventories, that keep track of stock levels throughout the supply chain and across geographic locations, could significantly reduce the number of journeys required. By avoiding receiving stock that is surplus to requirements or minimising inefficient last minute restocking, there would be less need for transport. Similarly in the case of couriered individual goods, digital stock management can help aggregate deliveries and optimise delivery routes. This would be especially the case if information about movement of goods and resources can be shared between departments or organisations.
Moving People
When it comes to movement of people, the COVID19 pandemic proved that for many organisations a remote model of work is entirely possible. While not appropriate for all tasks for all employment roles, for the majority roles some element of remote working is often feasible. From a carbon footprint reduction perspective, the more physical journeys that can be eliminated the better. This may not mean working from home, it may be a case of conducting meetings between different branch offices or with service users on-line rather than in person. While removing all journeys may not be possible or desirable, for example for medical visits or where vulnerable persons are involved, there is significant scope for reduction of journeys compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Moving Information
Reduction of use of transport for movement of information comes in two main forms: the reduction of movement of paper, typically associated with off-line services; and removal or reduction of the need for site visits for the collection of measured data or actuation of some remote device. In the case of delivery of paper, for example to a service user’s home address or between business organisations, digitalisation of the service is the most likely solution. For collection of measured data, for example an electricity meter or a water level indicator, the use of a connected sensor device may both remove the need for the journey and improve the frequency of measurement. Similar connected devices can also be used to trigger events such as the opening of a vent or flood gate. A typical deployment of such a connected sensor or device would be an Internet of Things (IoT) type solution.
For all use cases where transport is needed, accounting for the journeys, in terms of distance and reason will help organisations understand which journeys are unavoidable and which may be avoidable through further redesign of services. To a certain extent this information will already be being collected for mileage expenses claims or via petrol and diesel costs. Analysis of this existing data may itself provide insights as to opportunities to reduce carbon footprint though changes to use of transport and movement of resources, people and information.