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Sustainability has been already a topic on my agenda for many years. So when Rich McFall asked me to start the PLM Global Green Alliance (PGGA) in 2018, I supported that initiative. You can read more about my PLM and Sustainability ideas in this post here.
I have been lecturing about the relation between PLM and Sustainability last year. In 2018, the PGGA was a niche alliance trying to find people who would like to work and share PLM-related practices with others for a greener and sustainable planet.
Thanks to, or actually due to, the pandemic, climate disasters and the return of the US supporting the Paris Climate agreements, it became clear companies need to act. And preferably as soon as possible, which led to sustainability activities in many companies.
Also, the main PLM vendors started to publish their support and vision for a sustainable future, the area where we believe the PGGA can contribute in spreading the practices and experiences.
For that reason, the PGGA is aiming this year to have a series of discussions with the main PLM Vendors and their sustainability programs.
SAP
This time we are happy to publish an interview with Darren West from SAP. Darren West is the product management lead for SAP’s Circular Economy solutions. His role is to work with customers, sales and pre-sales colleagues, partners, solutions teams and product owners to expand existing and build new sustainability products, particularly those impacting Circular Economy topics.
We are glad to speak with Darren, as we believe sustainability and the circular economy go hand in hand and it requires systems thinking. We believe SAP, strong in managing materials and manufacturing processes, should be a leader in providing insights in ESG reporting. Helping companies to improve their environmental impact of products and production processes as they have the data.
Have a look at this 34 minutes interview and discussion with Darren West
The slides shown in this recording can be found here: Circular Economy -SAP for PLM Green Alliance
What we have learned
The interview showed that SAP is actively working on a sustainable future. Both by acting by themselves, but even more important, by helping their customers to change to more sustainable designs and production methods. There is still a way to go and we do not have too much time to sit back. The power of the current SAP Responsible Design and Production module is that it allows companies to understand their environmental impact and improve where possible. This is step 1 in my opinion to find a way to create sustainable products and business models.
The second, more general observation, is that we need to make our full product lifecycle management digital and connected. Data-driven is the only way to have efficient processes to estimate and calculate our environmental impact – my favorite From Coordinated to Connected topic.
Want to learn more?
In the context of this recording, Daren shared the following links for those of you who got inspired by the discussion (in alphabetical order):
- Catena-X, the german automotive alliance for secure and standardized data exchange
- Circularity Gap Report – a status where we are in our circularity targets
- Ellen MacArthur Foundation – all you want to learn about the circular economy
- Material Economics – Circular Economy and Climate study -explores the opportunities for the four largest materials in terms of emissions (steel, plastics, aluminum, and cement) and two large use segments for these materials (passenger cars and buildings).
- PLM Global Green Alliance – the place where Climate Change & Sustainability are discussed in the context of PLM
- SAP Circular Economy offerings and information
- SystemIQ – the place to discuss systems change/systems thinking
- World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) – their vision and more
- World Economic Forum Global Plastic Action Partnership (GPAP) – a plastic sustainable economy
- World Wildlife Fund (WFF) about plastic pollution and plastic usage
Conclusion
This was a motivating session to see PLM-related vendors are taking action. Next time, you will learn more from the design side when we talk with Autodesk about their sustainability program.
Unfortunately the day after this motivating session we were shocked by the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. So I am in a mixed mood, as having friends in both countries makes me realize that one dictator can kill people and hope.
Listen to president Zelensky’s speech to the Russian people and get inspired to act against any brainwashing or dictatorship. To my friends and readers, wherever you are, stay strong, informed and human.
For those living in the Northern Hemisphere: This week, we had the shortest day, or if you like the dark, the longest night. This period has always been a moment of reflection. What have we done this year?
Rob Ferrone (Quick Release), the Santa on the left (the leftist), and Jos Voskuil (TacIT), the Santa on the right (the rightist), share in a dialogue their highlights from 2020
Wishing you all a great moment of reflection and a smooth path into a Corona-proof future.
It will be different; let’s make it better.
About a year ago we started the PLM Global Green Alliance, further abbreviated as the PGGA. Rich McFall, the main driver behind the PGGA started the website, The PLM Green Alliance, to have a persistent place to share information.
Also, we launched the PLM Global Alliance LinkedIn group to share our intentions and create a community of people who would like to share knowledge through information or discussion.
Our mission statement is:
The mission of the new PLM Green Alliance is to create global connection, communication, and community between professionals who use, develop, market, or support Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) related technologies and software solutions that have value in addressing the causes and consequences of climate change due to human-generated greenhouse gas emissions. We are motivated by the technological challenge to help create a more sustainable and green future for our economies, industries, communities, and all life forms on our planet that depend on healthy ecosystems.
My motivation
My personal motivation to support and join the PGGA was driven by the wish to combine my PLM-world with interest to create a more sustainable society for anyone around the world. It is a challenging combination. For example, PLM is born in the Aerospace and Defense industries, probably not the most sustainable industries.
Having worked with some companies in the Apparel and Retail industry, I have seen that these industries care more about their carbon footprint. Perhaps because they are “volume-industries” closely connected to their consumers, these industries actively build practices to reduce their carbon footprint and impact societies. The sense or non-sense of recycling is such a topic to discuss and analyze.
At that time, I got inspired by a session during the PLM Roadmap / PDT 2019 conference.
Graham Aid‘s from the Ragn-Sells group was a call to action. Sustainability and a wealthy economy go together; however, we have to change our habits & think patterns. You can read my review from this session in this blog post: The weekend after PLM Roadmap / PDT 2019 – Day 1
Many readers of this post have probably never heard of the Ragn-Sells group or followed up on a call for action. I have the same challenge. Being motivated beyond your day-to-day business (the old ways of working) and giving these activities priority above exploring and learning more about applying sustainability in my PLM practices.
And then came COVID-19.
I think most of you have seen the image on the left, which started as a joke. However, looking back, we all have seen that COVID-19 has led to a tremendous push for using digital technologies to modernize existing businesses.
Personally, I was used to traveling every 2 – 3 weeks to a customer, now I have left my home office only twice for business. Meanwhile, I invested in better communication equipment and a place to work. And hé, it remains possible to work and communicate with people.
Onboarding new people, getting to know new people takes more social interaction than a camera can bring.
In the PGGA LinkedIn community, we had people joining from all over the world. We started to organize video meetings to discuss their expectations and interest in this group with some active members.
We learned several things from these calls.
First of all, finding a single timeslot that everyone worldwide could participate in is a challenge. A late Friday afternoon is almost midnight in Asia and morning in the US. And is Friday the best day – we do not know yet.
For that reason, we are probably moving to the PLM Green Alliance website and combine this environment with a space for discussion outside the LinkedIn scope. More to come on the PGGA website.
Finally, we will organize video discussion sessions to ask the participants to prepare themselves for a discussion. Any member of the PGGA can bring in the discussion topics.
It might be a topic you want to clarify or better understand.
What’s next
For December 4th, we have planned a discussion meeting related to the Exponential Roadmap 2019 report, where 36 solutions to halve carbon emission by 2030 are discussed. In our video discussion, we want to focus on the chapter: Digital Industries.
We believe that this topic comes closest to our PLM domain and hopes that participants will share their thinking and potential activities within their companies.
You can download the Exponential Roadmap here or by clicking on the image. More details about the PLM Global Green Alliance you will find in the LinkedIn group. If you want to participate, let us know.
The PGGA website will be the place where more and more information will be collected per theme, to help you understand what is happening worldwide and the place where you can contribute to let us know what is happening at your side.
Conclusion
The PLM Global Green Alliance exists now for a year with 192 members. With approximately five percent active members, we have the motivation to grow our efforts and value. We learned from COVID-19 there is a need to become proactive as the costs of prevention are always lower than the costs of (trying) fixing afterward.
And each of us has the challenge to behave a little differently than before.
Will you be one of them ?
Jos Voskuil's Weblog 
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