PLM Tools to Design for Sustainability

This month we are pleased to feature a guest blog submitted by PLM Green Global Alliance follower Roger L. Franz. who shares a few things he has learned as a Principal in Engineering Information Technology when beginning to explore the state of PLM tools to Design for Sustainability.


Design for Sustainability is now a mainstream requirement from governments, regulators, and customers. In this brief we summarize some current trends in the area of PLM tools to support rapid engineering assessment of environmental footprint among the many engineering choices. Engineering and science-based tools to quickly guide hardware engineers toward material selection and product configuration choices with reduced environmental footprint are critical to our future.

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Discussing PLM and Sustainability with CIMdata

Last year the PLM Green Global Alliance was excited to speak with PLM solution providers SAP, Autodesk, Dassault Systems, Sustaira, Aras, and PTC to learn about them and their customers’ contributions to sustainability. This year we were equally enthused to meet with CIMdata’s Mark Reisig in a wide-ranging conversation about sustainability, climate change and green energy.

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Climate Change Chronicles August 2022

The latest Climate Change Chronicles news digest, prepared for followers of the PLM Green Global Alliance, summarizes substantial news from around the world during the month of August, 2022 about the worsening climate and progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

This month’s good news question: what is the name of the recently passed legislation in the US that supporters say will help the country meet its 40% reduction in emissions target by 2030? Read on to find out while joining others in bearing witness to the growing impact of global warming on people and the planet.

For more positive news about the use of PLM-enabling technologies in creating a more sustainable, lower carbon, circular economy, subscribe to the PLM & Sustainability Newsletter then join our PLM Green LinkedIn Group.

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PLM & Sustainability August 2022

Experienced Product Lifecycle Management professionals, consultants, and solution providers all know that the biggest obstacle to implementing a PLM strategy is not in technology or software, but in business organizational cultures that resist critical self-examination and change, despite being confronted by inconvenient facts which threaten their performance or even survival.

Sound familiar to the hesitation and denial surrounding climate change that slows our global transition to a net-zero economy?

PLM consultants also tell their clients that every product manufacturer or process producer executes some form of PLM, whether they are consciously aware of it or not. The lack of a PLM business strategy, implementation plan, or supporting software solution is in fact one, albeit negligent, form of PLM.

Even when the “M” in this case is also for mismanagement.

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Climate Change News Digest June 2022

The latest Climate Change News Digest, prepared for followers of the PLM Green Global Alliance, summarizes news from around the world about the changing climate and progress in decarbonizing the global economy. Our good news question of the month: what percentage of US power came from renewable sources in the first quarter of the year?  Read on to find out and learn what you might have missed in your own climate news feeds during the past month. For news about the role of PLM in creating a more sustainable low-carbon economy, subscribe to our other news digest on the Intersection of PLM & Sustainability.

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The Role of PLM in Tracking Carbon Footprint

In Part 1 of this series of posts from the PLM Green Global Alliance on the Role of PLM in Slowing Climate Change we identified four primary opportunities to employ Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) in reducing, mitigating, or adapting to climate change from human-generated Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, most importantly CO2. These four areas for using PLM strategies and solutions are in: developing Green Products, generating Green Energy, reducing Carbon Footprints, and adapting to Climate Change.

In this new Part 2 we will begin to examine one of those in more detail; the use of PLM-enabling technologies to collect, calculate, track, report, and most importantly reduce the carbon footprint of products and processes. This capability then enables a full and accurate accounting for the carbon footprint of individual companies, entire industries, and national economies that supply, produce or consume these products or services. It may very well prove to be the most important contribution of PLM by helping to lower emissions and slow climate change for the benefit of future generations to come.

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The Role of PLM in Slowing Climate Change – Part 1

This new series of posts by Klaus Brettschneider and Richard McFall, contributing members of the PLM Green Global Alliance (PGGA), will explore how Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) can be used to slow climate change by reducing human-generated greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions into the atmosphere.

Carbon dioxide and methane are the two most damaging GHG which are commonly reported on as CO2 equivalents, or CO2e, and are measured in billions of tons or gigatons. Carbon continues to build in the atmosphere due to human activities on the ground where it has now surpassed 410 ppm, nearly double that prior to the start of the industrial age. Since CO2 stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years, a consensus is urgently building among climate scientists, elected officials, and NGOs like the International Energy Agency that the global economy must attain net-zero GHG emissions by 2050. This starts with a very challenging reduction of 50% by 2030, less than ten years away.

Image credit of NOAA at https://research.noaa.gov/

We begin our series by outlining the different roles and use cases that PLM can have in minimizing the carbon footprint – or “decarbonizing” – products, businesses, industries, and even entire economies. But first a brief level set on what PLM is and is not.

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Intersection of Product Lifecycle Management and Climate Change

Digital Engineering published the following commentary written by Robert Farrell on “The Intersection of Product Lifecycle Management and Climate Change” in the February 2021 issue which featured the PLM Green Global Alliance.

Until recently, initiatives to advance sustainability and combat climate change have primarily focused on improving product performance to minimize energy usage and lower greenhouse gas emissions. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is enabling technologies and supporting software applications that are contributing to the greening of our global economy in many ways.

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PLM Green Global Alliance is Launched

June 2020 (United States, Netherlands, Norway) – The launch of and participation in a new international collaboration, the PLM Green Global Alliance (“PGGA”), has been announced by Richard McFall from PLM Alliances, Jos Voskuil from TacIT, Oleg Shilovitsky from Beyond PLM, and Bjorn Fidjeland from plmPartner.

The coalition was founded with the mission to create a global connection and community between professionals who use, develop, market, or support Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) enabling technologies and software solutions that have value in addressing the causes and consequences of climate change due to human-generated greenhouse gas emissions such that we create a more sustainable circular economy.

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