How adopting sustainability as a service can drive business success and help the planet

Sustainability is a major priority in business boardrooms already, and pressures from regulators, shareholders, board members and employees are likely to further drive this trend. 

Businesses need to do more than just track carbon output. They must reduce waste and increase efficiency. Going green makes good business sense.

While organizations know they need to mitigate environmental risks more effectively across the supply chain, often they struggle to translate that ambition into results. Due to the complexity and scale of the challenge, not all businesses have the resources to move toward net-zero at the necessary pace, and many are lagging.  

At the same time, companies are increasingly being held accountable for their environmental impact, with many countries legislating on emissions reductions. 

There is a clear company risk in not being sustainable, both to the planet and to the business. 

Today’s complex challenges require ambitious solutions that can scale and evolve over time.

NTT recognizes this and has launched the industry’s first full-stack Sustainability as a Service offering. This is designed to help manufacturing, transportation and other industries accelerate sustainability initiatives and make data-driven decisions to reduce their carbon footprint and become more efficient through the intelligent use of IoT connectivity. Rather than making huge investments in infrastructure to collect and process data, companies now have the option to get this as a secure, scalable, fully managed service that requires no large capital outlay.

The full-stack offering, which includes devices, network connectivity such as private 5G, edge computing, an analytics and insight platform, and systems integration, takes a human-centric approach to ensure that the right decision-makers receive relevant and timely information.  The technology stack is complemented by professional services from strategy through to execution to ensure that the data is actionable and that there is a clear ROI.

For example:

• NTT is leveraging computer vision to reduce waste in a logistics warehouse. This solution recognizes items that are being picked and packed and provides verification that the quantity and products are correct. NTT is not only providing the technology but is also redesigning the pick-and-pack process and the pick stations to ensure the adoption and effectiveness of the technology.

• NTT provides a vast ecosystem of sensors that can be used to automate the collection of data on temperature/humidity, occupancy, soil moisture, air quality, water quality, etc. This data can then be combined to provide insights and information to lower energy usage and reduce impact on the environment – for example, by giving notifications of water leaks, chemical spills or exterior doors that are left open. Smart spaces can reduce energy use when unoccupied, while predictive/preventive maintenance can reduce wasteful downtime.

• As an ICT company with large assets such as undersea cables and data centers, NTT has made aggressive sustainability targets to become net-zero by 2030 and through their supply chain by 2040. NTT is sharing their experience with clients through Sustainability as a Service.

Although evolving, the process to calculate an enterprise’s carbon footprint is still highly manual. Data lives in silos across the IT and OT environment.

Collecting data across the supply chain for scope 2 and 3 emissions creates more complexity.

Organizations can find themselves questioning the accuracy and reliability of their data.

NTT works with clients to understand their data blind spots and leverages the right solution building blocks to collect the data and aggregate it with other complementary data, such as weather and location, to provide actionable insights.

“One of the biggest challenges of IoT is proving ROI,” says Devin Yaung, SVP, Group Enterprise IoT Products and Services at NTT. “You can solve any problem given enough budget. The challenge is to solve the problem in the most efficient way possible. We leverage the right building blocks for the use case and environment and offer these as a service so that clients can start small and grow their sustainability program.”  

He adds: “What is more important is that the data needs to be trusted and actionable rather than just noise. That’s why we also take a user-centric approach to understand who needs to receive the data, how much data they need and at what frequency.”

This becomes more important as the workforce evolves from digital immigrants to digital natives who are accustomed to receiving near real-time data and updates on every aspect of their lives. Sustainability as a Service is not just technology but also considers people, process and the regulatory environment.

Sustainability is a journey that all companies will have to embark upon. NTT’s Sustainability as a Service allows clients to travel this journey at their own pace.

Not only do these solutions help businesses meet sustainability goals, but they also help them benefit from energy cost savings, advanced operational excellence, enhanced risk management, and better work enablement across the organization.

Find out more about NTT’s commitment to sustainability.