Working on the long term

Last week we celebrated World Ozone Day on September 16 again. Forty years ago, many nations united to protect the ozone layer through science and action.

For those who missed the excitement, it started with a historic environmental agreement: the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

What has happened?

In the 1970s and 1980s, scientists discovered that CFCs from refrigerators, sprays, and foams were damaging the ozone layer. In 1985, the “ozone hole” over Antarctica was confirmed. Also, the ozone layer at the Arctic side showed signs of depletion.

As a result of these findings, the Montreal Protocol was adopted on September 16, 1987. It is a global treaty signed by virtually all countries concerning the rapid elimination of substances that deplete the ozone layer.

Countermeasures are slowly restoring the ozone layer, making the treaty a success story.

What were the reasons for success?

Although scientists engaged in a discussion about the scientific evidence, there were no significant economic forces behind the scenes influencing the scientific research.

The lack of substantial financial dependencies, combined with the absence of social media and Duning-Kruger experts, led to the belief that human influence on the Earth’s atmosphere could be stopped.

And probably an even more important fact, the depletion of the ozone layer was at the poles, making, in particular, the richer countries more vulnerable to the effects.

Where most attention focused on the hole above the South Pole, affecting New Zealand and Australia, the thinner layer at the North Pole was making Canada, the US, and Northern Europe vulnerable.

What have we learned?

Switching from CFCs was a minor inconvenience for consumers. Now we all accept the current solutions.
There was enough consensus in science when the majority of scientists agreed. In addition, there were no undermining forces with financial stakes in CFCs. Science was leading.
Today, science struggles as stakeholders sponsor research to protect their interests. In addition, social media is used to recruit supporters in a polarized environment (the side effect of social media)
Ultimately, after 40 years, the hole in the Ozone layer gets smaller and smaller and hopefully becomes normal. We keep on working on the long term.

The PLM Green Global Alliance

When Rich McFall approached me at the end of 2019 to start the PLM Green Global Alliance together, there was a kind of consensus that we human beings both influence the planet’s climate and its natural resources.

Where Rich focused on the causes and consequences of climate change due to human-generated greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from products and processes, my additional focus was broader, encompassing Sustainability in the context of where PLM practices could have an impact.

Our idea was to bring people together to address these issues by sharing thoughts and practices or enabling discussions in the context of PLM-related technologies.

Can we develop more eco-friendly products, and what are the conditions required?

Meanwhile, six years later, a lot has happened for better and for worse. Here is a set of observations

The PLM Green Global Alliance continues to grow.

Currently, we have over 1,500 registered members in our LinkedIn group.

Historically, most members came from Europe and then the US; now, India is catching up and approaching the number of US members.

This trend suggests that the focus of the alliance should shift slightly and seek more contributors from Asian countries.

We look forward to having Asian representatives in our PLM Green Global Alliance to gain a deeper understanding and engage in discussions about global issues.

Please feel free to contact us if you are interested in joining the core team. It might be a challenge to have group meetings that accommodate all time zones, but the planet is still relatively small compared to the universe – nothing is impossible.

The tools are there ..

In PLM, we often discuss people, processes, and then the tools. Here, we can confirm that, through our work and discussions with major PLM vendors, they are all providing tools and, in some cases, embedded practices to support a more sustainable product development process.

Have a look at our YouTube channel: The PLM Green Global Alliance channel.

The tools for generative design, life cycle assessment, and, of course, digital twins for the various lifecycle phases can help companies to develop and manufacture more sustainable products.

However, as mentioned, the tools will only be practical when the people have the mandate and when the processes are transformed into data-driven ones.

The need for a data-driven approach

Two years ago, during the PLM Roadmap/PDT Europe conference in Gothenburg, I had already mentioned that Sustainability might prompt companies to invest more time and effort in achieving a digital transformation in their PLM domain.

Compliance with regulations can be challenging when you still need to collect data from various sources with a lot of “guesstimate”. Greenhouse gas reporting, ESG reporting, and the upcoming Digital Product Passport can only be done efficiently if data is directly accessible without requiring people to collect it.

Unfortunately, in my recent discussions with companies, particularly management, they are not seeking a fundamental digital transformation from a document-driven approach to a data-driven and model-based approach.

Part of this challenge is the lack of education among top management, who are primarily focused on efficiency gains rather than adopting new approaches or mitigating risk.

The other challenge is that, as most companies lag behind on this topic, they do not feel the pressure of competition and do not want to take the risk of being first.

I will discuss this last topic in my upcoming PLM blog

It is about the people!

However, first and foremost, the most critical factor in driving sustainability within organizations is the people. Where companies are challenged in creating a green image, including the introduction of the Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO), there has always been resistance from existing business leaders, who prioritize money and profitability.

The global shift towards right-wing capitalism and efforts to remove regulations supporting sustainability are currently impacting these efforts. The term “Sustainability” has become negatively connoted, similar to “PLM” (Product Lifecycle Management – Don’t mention the P** word), and there is a need to reframe discussions at the management level to focus on risk mitigation and business strategies.

Where politicians might avoid a long-term vision, there are examples of companies like Ørsted, Pacific Gas & Electric, Maersk, the Holcim group, BlackRock, IKEA and more that are adopting sustainable practices as a risk mitigation strategy for the future and securing their companies’ long-term existence.

An interesting game changer for both businesses and behavior might be the rising costs of insurance against natural disasters. As the graph shows, the estimated global insured losses due to natural disasters over the last 15 years have increased significantly, starting in 2019. In the richer countries, the governments might be pushed to provide financial help after a disaster, but this will also have a (taxpayer) limit.

We are the people!

There is a lot we can do as a PLM Green Global Community. Have you read CIMdata’s commentary, written by our Sustainability & Energy core team member Mark Reisig – read the full article here: How PLM is Decarbonizing Automotive Transport—Amid Political Uncertainty, addressing the importance of modern digital PLM to support digital twin, digital thread and digital product passport implementations.

Or the paper from our core team member, LCA specialist Klaus Brettschneider, with the title The Sustainability Thread – Rethinking the digital thread to drive sustainability performance and green R&D, again stressing the importance of extending the digital thread to include sustainability metrics, enabling companies to design, produce, and operate products more efficiently while reducing environmental impact and supporting green R&D.

Additionally, there are the monthly ESG newsletters from Vincent De La Mar of Sustaira, as well as the recent interview with Vincent, in which PGGA and Sustaira continue to discuss sustainability. Sustaira helps companies with a sustainability reporting platform on top of their existing enterprise systems. A first step that is needed to understand where measures have an impact.

A regular guest at our discussions, Dave Duncan, Head of Sustainability at PTC, who published this year a very comprehensive, free-to-download book: Product Sustainability for Dummies. We also had a great discussion about the Product Service System, a mandatory business model for sustainable business.

And recently, we saw the kick-off for the Design for Sustainability workgroup, organised by Erik Reiger and Matthew Sullivan. They are in the process of establishing this workgroup, where there will be more discussion and information exchanged between the workgroup members about the people and process angle (Erik‘s focus) and the tools and technology dimension (Matthew‘s focus)

The post concludes with Rich McFall, who, in 2018, observed that there was so little organized action fighting climate change and started to motivate people to launch the PLM Green Global Alliance. It was his initiative to bring people together and raise awareness about the fact that, as a PLM community, we can help one another and start making a difference. Rich helped us a lot in setting up the website and ensuring that we have regular updates and a persistent storage of the information generated.