By Shaun Butler, VP APAC, Brightly Software
The impact of climate change is undeniable, and its effects are being pulled into sharp focus across governments globally. The global focus on carbon is forcing asset managers to consider the long-term future of assets and plan for decarbonisation accordingly.
Following last year’s COP26, it was acknowledged that creating a more sustainable future will require a collective global effort and an enormous capital injection to enable the vast structural changes required.
Asset managers are now considering additional levels related to sustainability in the context of their asset valuations. For example, the risk of a high-carbon consuming asset in the longer term and what will be the value of a high-carbon asset vs. a low carbon asset.
Increased regulation and risk mitigation are reshaping the infrastructure asset management sector to align with the shift towards a longer-term approach and consider the value of assets now and into the future. The road to decarbonising requires strategic, long-term planning, and a new approach to asset planning and valuation.
How can organisations get started?
Understand your carbon footprint and set benchmarks
You can’t say what net-zero looks like for your organisation if you don’t know what the starting point is. Start by using an Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) solution to create a central hub of all your carbon-producing assets, including the condition, consumption, performance, and replacement value of every asset. Once you have this, you can start to track and analyse your actual and projected emissions and adjust your plans if you are ahead or behind schedule.
Consider sustainability in your long-term asset planning
While your existing assets can deliver sustainability outcomes, there is also the opportunity to apply strategic asset management in planning for the future. This may include investing in your older assets to improve performance or acquiring new systems and assets to ensure sustainability long-term.
Think beyond short-term planning cycles
Asset managers must become better at storytelling to engage decision-makers in the sustainable asset management journey. It is difficult to gain commitment to future sustainability plans when funding cycles are limited to shortterm thinking. The cost to build can change significantly in one or three years’ time, as can advancements in technology. Telling the story means getting smarter with data collection and being able to serve up those insights in a simple and compelling way.
Taking a strategic asset management focus, organisations can utilise predictive lifecycle modelling to look at the consequences of action or inaction. This is highly effective for weighing up different funding decisions and displaying this information is an easy-to-understand way to a board or senior executives.
Connect the dots between your data
When it comes to energy and carbon performance, the amount of data you can source in real-time using IoT is extremely valuable.
Combine that with predictive analytics and you have the ability to model the future condition and service level of every asset. You can also optimise your future capital investment programs by directing capital spend to the most appropriate assets at the right time, based upon criticality, obsolescence or climate change.
This sponsored editorial is brought to you by Brightly Software. To learn more, please visit www.brightlysoftware.com.
