Sustainability Beyond Disclosure and Regulation

Summary

Data—whether financial or operational, is at the heart of environmental, social and governance (ESG) regulation and reporting. So while sustainability may be a corporate objective, the mandates related to ESG both depend on and affect operations on the plant floor. Because of that, the automation professionals working to create and optimize plant floor operations have an important role to play in corporate sustainability efforts.    

In his session at the IoT Solutions World Congress in Barcelona, ISA Past President and Executive Board member Carlos Mandolesi spoke about how automation can help companies achieve sustainability goals. “I think there’s a missing opportunity for the automation professionals related to sustainability initiatives,” he said. “There are a lot of business consultants and finance people involved with ESG reporting, a lot of Board- and C-level discussions and lots of PowerPoints. There is a lot of talk but no real action. The automation professionals are the ones who can make a real impact because they know their plants and processes, and they know the cause and effect, so they use automation technologies to help companies make an impact.” 

ESG reporting requires data 

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) took effect for eligible EU entities in corporate fiscal year 2024. Organizations were to start implementing environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting capabilities and infrastructure in 2023 to prepare their CSRD reporting for 2024 and beyond. According to an October 2023 article by Jim DeLoach, managing director host of The Protiviti View, mandatory ESG reporting is a reality for more than 3,000 U.S. companies due to the EU’s CSRD.  

“CSRD compliance requires substantial data collection, cross-functional collaboration, and, potentially, new reporting infrastructure. Organizations should begin crucial preparatory work immediately to improve the sophistication and rigor of their internal controls and governance oversight related to data collection.” 

Measurement delivers data 

Data reporting—whether financial, which information technology (IT) departments are really good at; or operational, which encompasses almost everything else—is at the root of ESG requirements. Operational technology (OT) is (or should be) responsible for accurate data captured from enterprise resource planning (ERP), manufacturing execution systems (MES), enterprise asset management (EAM)—including computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS)—emissions records and more. Organizations must embed sustainability throughout the entire company to unlock relevant data hidden within their infrastructure, which will future-proof organizations and ensure obligatory compliance and therefore cost savings. 

In July 2023, the International Society of Automation (ISA) released its position paper, “Achieving Sustainability Goals with Automation.” As the paper describes, automation has a significant role to play in achieving sustainability goals, and offers new ways to accelerate ESG activities across manufacturing, industry and beyond. From the position paper:  

“Measurement is a great example of how automation can offer immediate, accurate monitoring directly in production, rather than in a laboratory facility—making it easier for companies and [regulators] to monitor for compliance. Data is increasingly available and is transparent to stakeholders, often with a layer of analysis powered by machine learning [ML] or artificial intelligence [AI] to identify potential areas of concern. This removes the potential for bias in analysis—where one engineer’s threshold differs from another’s interpretation. It further produces data that focuses on the skills of employees rather than their identities—especially important as companies have increased their strategic efforts on diversity, equity and inclusion.” 

Digital transformation of industrial systems means more and better data is available. And some new companies are building in both data capture and sustainability goals from the start. PureCycle Technologies holds a global license for the patented solvent-driven purification recycling technology developed by The Procter & Gamble Company designed to transform polypropylene plastic waste into a continuously renewable resource. James Haw, vice president of program management and digital strategy at PureCycle Technologies described applying digitalization from the ground up when building new plastic recycling facilities.  

Haw said the new facilities are “born digital like a planned community" so all aspects of the production facility and business are fully digitized from the beginning, and all data is held within a common data lake. This includes all systems that contribute to and draw from the data lake, whether on premise or cloud-hosted including process automation, maintenance, engineering, operations, HSSE (Health, Safety, Security & Environment), building automation and business systems. That means, “not only is ESG reporting automated, so it the entire plant,” said Haw.  

New value chains: green hydrogen, CCUS, lithium batteries 

In an ISA Connect technical forum, ISA Fellow Jonas Berge, who is also senior director of applied technology at Emerson, had much to say in response to the question, “Can you provide examples of successful automation projects that have significantly improved sustainability in a manufacturing setting?” 

Berge said plants deploy multiple automation solutions to enhance sustainability, such as the monitoring of heat exchangers, cooling towers, air-cooled heat exchangers, steam traps, pressure relief valves (PRV), industrial light, emergency relief vents, thief hatches, seals (methane leaks), energy management metering and submetering, pilot-operated PRVs, and advanced process control (APC). (See Berg’s full article on the topic, Smart Plant Modernization of Core Process Control, elsewhere in this issue.) 

“In addition to that,” Berge continued, “there is all the specialized automation that goes into building plants for “the new value chains” including green hydrogen, lithium battery manufacturing and carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS): 

• Hydrogen value chain plants apply automation to electrolyzers, reformers, compression, liquefaction, pipeline, transportation, storage, hydrogen blending into natural gas and hydrogen refueling stations. 
• The lithium battery value chain encompasses mining, concentration, refining, battery chemicals, and cell manufacturing. 
• The carbon capture value chain encompasses membrane/PSA/VSA/amine, compression, pipeline, storage, injection well and more. 

Berge also commented on the most common barriers to integrating automation for sustainability. He noted the lack of versatile wireless sensor network infrastructure and sensors, and that deploying standards-based wireless infrastructure and sensors can overcome this situation. He said standards-based architecture can overcome the lack of unified architecture for data and industrial software. In addition, he advocated using ready-made apps instead of attempting to code your own software, and instead of attempting to use machine learning, use first principles, he said. 

“The technology and innovations to improve sustainability are already here but are futuristic to many plants as they have not yet deployed them,” Berge said. They include: 

• Wireless sensor network infrastructure and sensors: WirelessHART (IEC62591). 
• Standards-based architecture for data and industrial software: OPC-UA (IEC62541). 
• Ready-made apps: mechanistic AI. 
• First principles (1P) apps: mechanistic AI. 

“Sustainable energy and sustainable goods require new infrastructure, and this infrastructure requires automation,” added Berge. “Without automation there is no sustainability. As the population and the middle class within that population grows, we will need more automation to keep up.” 

Moving sustainability forward 

How should organizations implement new technologies to help use collected data to drive change and comply with regulations? Caitlin Keam, senior director of sustainability applications at IFS, said, “Get your data into systems. Once it’s in systems, you can do a lot with the data that exists there. Once the data is in, the next step is ensuring data quality, then you can start doing anomaly detection and so on. 

“As we go on, [the data] gets better defined and consistent,” Keam continued. “Once you have the right data foundation, there’s lots of technology that you can use to support you through automation, understanding the data, having the right insights, and having the insights on a more granular level.” 

Added ISA’s Mandolesi, “Organizations and entities that focus their attention on sustainable automation will benefit tremendously. Cost reduction, increased safety and greater workforce development opportunities are the immediately apparent benefits, but leaders  must also recognize the opportunity to demonstrate their ESG leadership in a climate where environmental responsibility is fundamental to business success and growth.”