Global Climate Action Needs Automation to Achieve Net Zero Targets

We all know that sustainability has become one of the buzzwords and one of the key topics in recent years. Everybody is talking about it, in almost every tradeshow and events. It is a good sign to see that some organizations are taking it seriously and see sustainability as one of their key objectives.  

Also, the directives/regulations e. g. The European Green Deal, EU Taxonomy, corporate sustainability due diligence, and corporate sustainability reporting directive further push industrial companies on their sustainability goals. In my opinion, sustainability has different meanings for different people and industries. For industrials saving energy, reducing CO2 emissions and reporting their emissions seems to be some of the key goals. ARC believes that sustainability can also be seen as an opportunity to automate production processes for more transparency, to improve productivity, competitiveness, etc.

Prabhu Soundarrajan, International Society of Automation (ISA), presented on "Sustainable Automation: Balancing Economic Growth and Environmental Responsibility" at Sustainability as a Business Strategy session, on May 16, 2023, at ARC’s European Industry in Sitges (Barcelona, Spain).

Prabhu touched upon the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals framework and gave a brief analysis on the major contributors of global GHG emissions by sectors including agriculture, industry, energy, buildings, and transport and as well as emissions by major countries.

He highlighted the ambition of achieving net zero goals by 2050 and 60GT reduction vs. action gap of 31GT with nationally determined contributions. He emphasized that automation plays a key role for supporting industrial companies and plastics circularity initiatives to achieve sustainability goals.

Prabhu closed his presentation issuing “calls to action” for the automation industry as below:

1. Set reasonable sustainability goals.
2. Meet the goals short term (2023- 2025) while making progress towards ambitious 2030 net zero goals and forward.
3. Come together as an automation industry to help achieve sustainability goals with the help of digital transformation.
4. Leverage symbiotic benefits of sustainability and automation.
5. Start now with Speed & Scale

The concept of sustainable automation that climate goals need automation was well received by the audience across multiple sectors at ARC EU forum. 

Furthermore on this topic and observations on the state of industrial sustainability from my colleague Mike Guilfoyle's visit to the Hannover Fair, Germany.