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Sustainability is now on the boardroom agenda keeping in line with the emphasis on lower carbon footprint and waste reduction. Buildings and spaces have disparate components such as diverse technology, data, hardware, experiences, and policies that integrate and synchronize. These components are responsible for generating a significant 40% of all greenhouse gas emissions.  Making a space smart means making people more productive in an environment that is connected, sustainable, accessible and secure.

Smart spaces would not exist without the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), data and computational power. This technological convergence is essential to aggregate the incoming data in a building. Once the data is normalized into a common communication protocol, it is then published for key business leaders to make critical decisions that will impact the overall optimization of the building, its assets and the people.

IoT enables and drives a sustainability culture through smart spaces because IoT devices are one of the most accurate and best ways of collecting and verifying data since it is automated and eliminates human error. Implementing IoT in a building or environment makes it a smart space and eliminates the human component of collecting, understanding and translating it - whether it’s data from machines, air quality, temperatures, or human elements. When that data is collected, it can be extracted, visualized, or combined with AI and ML. Compared to other alternatives such as manual data inputs, IoT is certainly the most efficient set of tools in terms of cost and accuracy for collecting sustainability data. When combined with the cloud, it makes for a great enabler.

 

IoT helped Infosys become carbon neutral 30 years ahead of the Paris Agreement

In the past decade, Infosys’ experience has provided an abundance of data points and IoT efficacy. By deploying smart automation in its offices, Infosys reduced carbon emissions by an average of 9.3% year over year for ten years (helping us become carbon neutral), reduced water consumption by 60%, reduced per capita energy usage by 55% ($225M in energy saving), and certified 25 million sq. ft. as highest-rated “green” buildings. We increased our employee count to nearly 250,000, more than 160% growth since 2008, yet energy usage grew by a low 20% growth in comparison. Equally important, smart spaces improved employee productivity and experience measured through optimized and efficient desk and room booking services and improved visitor satisfaction rate experience from site entry to exit.

 

Sensors to insights and cloud adoption

IoT enables complex ESG sustainability measurement by tuning sensors to measure energy usage, air quality, and other environmental factors. While these measures include social and environmental aspects, you can also measure factors such occupancy, population density, ingress/egress, safety and sanitation. For governance, sensors can be tuned to ensure the monitored space remains compliant with regulations and helps capture data needed for reporting.

Once you have your data, there’s the question of choosing which data you want to share and in what format. You can tune these devices, drive output into certain formats or other systems, and look at a regulatory component like a scorecard or possibly a real-time readout. Ultimately, IoT is the inexpensive way of doing much more accurate work which can capitalize AI and ML technologies to identify and address anomalies.

Cloud adoption is picking up rapidly as both business and operational processes move to the cloud in the micro apps way. These apps run workloads at the edge or on the cloud. Based on the need, these apps are pre-configured, cloud-agnostic and ready to deploy. What is left is client site contextualization which occurs during deployment. Cloud adoption has reduced code building and testing efforts. Sites can go live in reduced time with minimal business disruptions yielding higher business benefits.

The non-conventional method of energy measurement leads the way as it minimizes business disruption. Technologies like radiant cooling result in reduced energy requirements for cooling and improve air quality index as there is no air circulation.

 

All verticals and industries are positioned to capitalize on IoT enabled sustainability 

The sustainability ecosystem is large and includes real estate, energy industries that are transforming to renewables providers and virtually any entity with something to do with energy. There are industries with IoT devices partnering with edge computing in the field, including oil rigs and oil stations, processing centers, manufacturing plants using IoT devices on machines to help understand everything from vibration to efficiencies. IoT devices can reside on machinery, rooms and environments which don’t need to be optimized for human occupancy in manufacturing plants. A human working in a digital farming environment such as container growing is unlikely to be comfortable because of the light waves. IoT devices can also be installed in factories with robotics where climate conditions do not have to be monitored but can still collect the data coming through. Another big opportunity is retail, where it can help understand everything from shipping logistics to shelf activity and transport activity and having things tagged that way. Real estate, infrastructure and pharmaceuticals also present significant opportunities, as IoT can help understand R&D units and logistics components.

 

A sustainable future is in our hands

The most exciting aspect of IoT is its potential to create the most accurate and cost-effective way of capturing data. The cost of IoT will continue to drop. When devices are paired with the cloud, edge computing and 5G, IoT becomes the ultimate enabler. Further downstream, as data becomes more accurate and automated, the financing of sustainability programs becomes much more achievable, leaving few reasons for companies not to embrace the sustainability agenda.

 

About the Authors:

Corey

1. Corey Glickman, Vice President - Head of Sustainability & Design, Infosys ltd

Vikas Gupta

2. Vikas Gupta, Senior Delivery Manager – IoT, Infosys ltd

 


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