The manufacturing sector accounts for a quarter of all global emissions. Heavy industries such as steel, cement and chemicals have a hard time cutting carbon emissions. Not only do they rely heavily on fossil fuels, they often involve wasteful processes built on outdated technology, leading to inefficient and often costly operations.

This is why it is important to fully embrace digital technologies. This can benefit industries in many ways: for example, it will enable the automation of processes, the simulation of production scenarios, and the remote training of personnel. And enabling the effective analysis of operational data will empower businesses to increase efficiency from end to end.

In addition, there should be a greater focus on electrification than on industry energy use. Today, only 21% of industry energy is electrified. Converting more operations to electric-powered equipment – ​​heat pumps instead of boilers or condensers, electric heating instead of steam or fossil fuel heat, and electric motors instead of steam turbines – would increase efficiency and reduce emissions significantly.

The industrial built environment can also be digitized and increasingly digitalized, connected and integrated into energy management software systems to measure and control energy-intensive electrical loads, while reducing scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions.

Additionally, in industrial plants, about two-thirds of energy is lost or wasted before it is used. Digitally transforming industrial processes and leveraging digital twin technologies across the supply chain, alongside software and analytics, can prevent such inefficiencies.

Digital twins collect operational data from industrial plants to create virtual, real-time models of processes. The technology shows in detail how plants might perform with different operating scenarios built into the software. Users can see how these changes could impact production, profits, and carbon emissions, discovering better ways to use resources and energy and avoid waste.