Recently, I (Mark Reisig) delivered a CIMdata webinar titled, “Sustainability & PLM: An Industrial Perspective.”  For those of you who were unable to attend I am excited to share the following summary of key points that I made. You can also view the recorded webinar here at your leisure.

I don’t believe anyone would knowingly use our children’s and grandchildren’s future resources to live more comfortably now, forcing them to pay our debts. Yet that is precisely what we’ve done throughout the industrial period with an unsustainable, linear take-make-waste economy by continuing to exploit the earth’s resources.

When we throw something away, unless it’s biodegradable, there’s no such thing as “away.” We’re simply moving what can’t be recycled and, in the process, trashing our planet. When we take carbon out of the ground and burn it, we create carbon dioxide, which, along with other man-made greenhouse gases, accumulates in our atmosphere and traps the sun’s energy, resulting in global warming, with catastrophic consequences to our climate.

Climate change is one of many sustainability threats that have exceeded the threshold of what is considered safe for both us and future generations. I briefly cover deforestation, biodiversity, synthetic chemicals, water, and biochemical flows.

Today, we are on pace to reach an average temperature of 2.9°C warmer than the pre-industrial period. The goal was to limit global warming to 2.0°C and preferably 1.5°C. Scientific evidence, including the IPCC Report on Global Warming, emphasizes that to meet this goal, we must  stay within 1.5°C by 2030—less than 5.5 years away.  Last year, we averaged 1.35°C (2.43° F). However, in the last 12 months, we’ve already exceeded the target, averaging 1.64°C. This should lower somewhat due to the El Nino effect, but the goal of reaching 1.5°C by 2030 is in serious jeopardy.

The good news is that people want action, investors are demanding it, and policy makers are reacting with regulations going into effect to lower emissions and implement more circular and sustainable regulations. Corporate net-zero emissions pledges are gaining momentum with over 5,500 pledges—a 40% increase in the past year. The challenge is most companies are in the early stages of meeting their sustainability commitments and are struggling on how to meet these goals.

Today, approximately 80% of the environmental impact of a product is locked-in during the design phase and approximately 65-90% of the carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) is in the supply chain. We must educate product engineering on how to design for sustainability with circularity in mind. We must enable design and sourcing to have visibility to the CO₂e of the materials they use throughout the lifecycle, which will enable companies to lower the embodied carbon of their products.

While global warming and our lack of sustainability represent an existential threat to our long-term survival, it is also the most significant business opportunity of the 21^st century—to transform away from fossil fuels and toward a more sustainable, circular economy. There is now a tremendous opportunity to capitalize on embedding sustainability within a company’s PLM strategy, where it is possible to not just realize your sustainability goals, but to gain efficiencies by improving collaboration across your supply chain, enabling more agility, resilience, competitiveness, and ensuring long-term profitability.

As part of my Sustainability and Green Energy Practice at CIMdata, we are offering a new Sustainability Assessment that will review your organization’s current product sustainability goals, synthesize needs, and provide recommendations on how to embed sustainability within your PLM roadmap to achieve a more efficient, decarbonized, and circular future. Contact me directly at m.reisig@cimdata.com for additional information and to get started on your sustainability journey.

Until then, I invite you to listen to the full webinar here, including insightful questions asked of me by attendees near the end.

Presentation slide images are copyright and courtesy of the global-leading PLM consultancy CIMdata.