Meeting Sustainability Objectives in Innovative Ways

From FTSE to Dow Jones, the big hitters used to be preoccupied with industry recognition that focused on growth, profits, and market share. Sure, these signs of success are still important – but today, the most respected businesses are those that also show the most innovation when it comes to sustainability.

Just take the Corporate Knights index, which highlights top performers in this area. These rankings focus on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors – responding to the challenges of climate change, being a good social contributor, and running a company properly and ethically.
 
For example, companies are judges based on things like how well they use water and energy, limit greenhouse gas emissions, treat employees, create a diverse workforce, pay their taxes, and demonstrate financial responsibility. They also need to demonstrate that their revenues come from green sources and they haven’t incurred major sanctions.
 
While that may sound like a tall order, it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility. One of the top performers on the 2019 list was a petroleum refinery, which just goes to show how achievable this is for any company serious about committing to sustainability.
 
In fact, sustainable tech is expected to be a $12 trillion industry by 2030, while global investment in green bonds is accelerating year on year.
 
“Innovation is critical to bring forward the technologies and the things that we’ll need in order to be sustainable,” says Steve Birtch, Business Development Manager at Aggreko. At the same time, he says, going after the “low hanging fruit” by making existing processes more efficient is enormously successful in bringing companies closer to their emissions targets.
 
Take Aggreko, which recently earned the prestigious Carbon Trust stamp of approval by using the energy-management focused ISO 50001 standardization as a tool to get there. “We put the emphasis on doing things right when it comes to designing equipment for energy management processes,” explains Birtch.
 
ISO 50001 follows the “plan – do – act – check” process, conducting a management review, identifying opportunities and checking they’re working. It’s a low cost, highly effective approach; companies like Toyota and 3M have used it to reduce energy use by 15% across their facilities, for example.

We also extend these insights to our customers, for example by helping customers mitigate their use of water. That can range from implementing closed loop cooling and chiller systems, cooling towers performing at top rate, smart preventative maintenance, and systems to making sure water delivered back into the environment is cool enough to avoid causing any damage to the environment.
 
Limiting consumption and streamlining processes to make them more efficient are both great strategies, but industry leaders go a step further.
 
“It’s also about reinventing the fire,” says Birtch. “Looking at how we can provide power and energy in new ways.” That means anything that displaces fossil fuels without damaging the planet – more renewables, hydro, nuclear, bio energy, wind, and solar.  
 
For some companies, that means buying into Power Purchase Agreements. Facebook, for example, buys 2.2 GW from green energy sources. Others are taking matters into their own hands with creative on-site energy generation solutions.
 
Take microgrids. These are highly resilient systems that make excellent uses of green energy drawn from multiple green sources. These can range from small systems designed to support a group of buildings, university campuses, or remotely situated businesses, through to huge solar farm installations like the Ouarzazate power station in Morocco. This innovative project even integrates salt storage in the project so energy can be stored in the ground, providing green power 24/7.
 
“What’s different about Aggreko is that we offer microgrids on a rental basis, which allows our customers to implement it very quickly.,” says Birtch. By tapping into Aggreko’s fleet of solar panels, hybrid systems, and batteries, these customers also get to tap into the most cutting edge technology in a fast-evolving sector. “It’s very sustainable,” he explains.
 
Increasingly, environmentally-conscious, efficiency-minded companies are realizing it’s up to them to find smart new ways to improve sustainability. Regulations and government initiatives only go so far. Political priorities fluctuate. Even where ambitious goals have been introduced, they aren’t moving fast enough to address the most pressing, global environmental challenges.
 
As Birtch explains, Aggreko is working hard to displace fossil fuels from its energy mix and is getting close to zero emissions. With the right partner to guide you, you can too.

In our upcoming webinar, Steve goes over the Net Zero Emissions race, the ESG principles, sustainability KPI's and much more on how to meet sustainability objectives in innovative ways. 

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