Tag: 3BL

LINCOLN, Neb., March 24, 2023 /3BL Media/ – The Arbor Day Foundation and POWER Engineers Inc., a global consulting engineering firm, are expanding their partnership to impact forests around the United States through strategic reforestation efforts. POWER has committed to providing support to plant a minimum of 5,000 trees annually for the next 10 years with a focus on forests of greatest need.

The partnership began in 2022 with the planting of 5,000 trees in Nez Perce National Forest in Idaho, their home state. This project focused on wildlife recovery within the Red River Ranger District, an area significantly degraded by unsustainable forest management, fires, and disease. By planting a diverse blend of native tree species — an essential component for both forest health and biodiversity of plant and animal species — the project helped to restore essential habitat and bolster the resiliency of the district. Each year, POWER will work with the Foundation to support programs in other forests of need, ensuring the partnership leads to meaningful, measurable impact across vulnerable regions.

“We look forward to continuing our work alongside POWER Engineers in the years to come. Partnerships like this help increase our ability to plant the right trees in the places that need them most,” said Dan Lambe, Chief Executive of the Arbor Day Foundation. “Together we can help restore and protect our forests and ensure these vital ecosystems have a chance to thrive well into the future.”

For the past 50 years, the Arbor Day Foundation has worked to plant nearly 500 million trees in forests and communities around the world. Through a global network of partnerships, the Foundation facilitates projects that empower organizations of all sizes to reach their sustainability goals via measurable, impactful work through trees and forests. The Foundation recently announced an initiative to plant 500 million trees over the next 5 years in the forests and communities that need them most.

“We’re excited to be partnering with the Arbor Day Foundation to help rebuild forests across the U.S. that need reforestation due to the devastation of wildfires,” said Forrest Neumann, POWER’s Fleet Program Manager. “We found reforestation to be one of the best ways for us to care for the environment and to help directly in areas where POWER operates.”

“We’re focused on doing good for our partners and communities and partnering with the Arbor Day Foundation is a great step in that direction,” said Chuck Kemp, Chief Financial Officer of POWER Engineers. “We are excited to demonstrate POWER’s care for our communities and our environment through helping rebuild forests of greatest need.”

POWER Engineers is committed to helping create a more sustainable future through their partnerships with clients and through their own sustainability actions. They actively help clients thoughtfully design projects that consider environmental impacts and lead to more sustainable infrastructure. They are focused on ensuring their employees, clients, and communities prosper for years to come, which is reflected in their 10-year commitment to help rebuild forests around the country.

As one of the world’s largest operating conservation organizations, the Arbor Day Foundation, through its members, partners, and programs, educates and engages stakeholders and communities across the globe to involve themselves in its mission of planting, nurturing, and celebrating trees. More information is available at arborday.org.

About POWER Engineers

POWER Engineers Inc. is an engineering and environmental consulting firm specializing in integrated solutions for clients in the power delivery, power generation, food and beverage, government, renewables and storage, campus energy, and oil and gas industries. Founded in 1976, it is an employee-owned company with 50 offices and more than 3,500 employees across North America.

About the Arbor Day Foundation

Founded in 1972, the Arbor Day Foundation is the world’s largest membership nonprofit organization dedicated to planting trees. With a focus in communities and forests of greatest need, the Foundation — alongside its more than 1 million members, supporters and valued partners — has helped to plant nearly 500 million trees in more than 50 countries. Guided by its mission to inspire people to plant, nurture and celebrate trees, the Arbor Day Foundation is committed to unlocking the power of trees to help solve critical issues facing people and the planet. Learn more about the impact of the Arbor Day Foundation at arborday.org.

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Recently, CNH Industrial brand New Holland Agriculture hosted a special event in São Paulo, Brazil, focused on female leadership and innovation in agriculture. Titled “It’s Time for Women”, the event took place at Cubo Itaú – the largest innovation hub in Latin America. Influential and successful female figures were both in the audience and on stage. They debated themes such as leadership, influence, innovation, transformation, inspiration and the role of women in Brazilian agribusiness.

“Women play an increasingly important role in society. New Holland wants to highlight and encourage this growing role, especially in relation to rural areas and the agriculture business. In this sense, as transformation agents, we want to foster actions that bring more knowledge, opportunities and training to women,” said Carolina Brandão, Marketing Manager for Brazil at New Holland Agriculture.

“It’s Time for Women” was attended by CNH Industrial and New Holland employees, dealers and customers. Also at the event were Carlo Lambro, Global President of New Holland Agriculture, and Paulo Máximo, the brand’s Director of Commercial Marketing for Latin America.

A team of professional speakers were there to share their expertise too. They included Mariely Biff, Consultant and Speaker on Succession and Family Governance in Agriculture, Martha Gabriel, Digital Transformation and Technology Executive, and Renata Vichi, CEO of chocolate brand Kopenhagen. Other speakers were Natália Leite and Soraia Schutel, from Sonata Brasil, a school for the development of leaders.

For Paulo Máximo, Commercial Marketing Director for Latin America at New Holland Agriculture, adding more female leaders to the company promotes innovation – one of the brand’s strategic pillars.

He said: “As a brand close to its customers, we know that women in agriculture are innovative by nature. This event has brought them resources that are important for business and skills for their own lives.”

CINCINNATI, March 23, 2023 /3BL Media/ – Fifth Third Bank, National Association, was recognized by Ethisphere, a global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices, as one of the 2023 World’s Most Ethical Companies. Fifth Third has been recognized four times by Ethisphere. In 2023, the list includes 135 honorees in 19 countries across 46 industries. Fifth Third is one of only four banks on the list.

Fifth Third is a purpose-driven company with a long commitment to ethics and integrity. The Bank has a strong record of implementing practices that positively impact all stakeholders while delivering solid financial results and through-the-cycle performance.

“To be one of only four banks worldwide is truly remarkable and illustrates our charge to do well by doing good while delivering sustainable value to all we serve,” said Tim Spence, president and CEO of Fifth Third. “Our commitment to doing what is right for our customers, communities, employees and shareholders is at the foundation of our ambition to be the one bank people most value and trust. We’re proud to be consistently recognized by Ethisphere as one of the World’s Most Ethical Companies, and the honor belongs to our employees. It’s a testament to their hard work to build an ethical culture and unwavering commitment to live our core values.”

Fifth Third strives to do well by doing good, with efforts that include a $100 billion environmental and social finance target to be achieved through 2030, a boost in its minimum wage for the third time in recent years and a $2.8 billion Accelerating Racial Equality, Equity and Inclusion initiative. A highlight of the latter initiative is the $180 million Fifth Third Bank Empowering Black Futures Neighborhood Program, which provides nine targeted neighborhoods with the capital, expertise and collaboration to create equitable growth and economic mobility.

“Ethics matter. Organizations that commit to business integrity through robust programs and practices not only elevate standards and expectations for all, but also have better long-term performance,” said Ethisphere CEO Erica Salmon Byrne. “We continue to be inspired by the World’s Most Ethical Companies honorees and their dedication to making real impact for their stakeholders and displaying exemplary values-based leadership. Congratulations to Fifth Third Bank for earning a place in the World’s Most Ethical Companies community.”

Ethics & Performance 

Ethisphere’s 2023 Ethics Index, the collection of publicly tradedcompanies recognized as recipients of this year’s World’s Most Ethical Companies designation, outperformed a comparable index of large-cap companies by 13.6 percentage points over a five-year period.

Methodology & Scoring

Grounded in Ethisphere’s proprietary Ethics Quotient®, the World’s Most Ethical Companies assessment process includes more than 200 questions on culture, environmental and social practices, ethics and compliance activities, governance, diversity, and initiatives that support a strong value chain. The process serves as an operating framework to capture and codify the leading practices of organizations across industries and around the globe.

Honorees 

To view the full list of this year’s honorees, please visit the World’s Most Ethical Companies website at https://worldsmostethicalcompanies.com/honorees/.

About Fifth Third

Fifth Third is a bank that’s as long on innovation as it is on history. Since 1858, we’ve been helping individuals, families, businesses and communities grow through smart financial services that improve lives. Our list of firsts is extensive, and it’s one that continues to expand as we explore the intersection of tech-driven innovation, dedicated people and focused community impact. Fifth Third is one of the few U.S.-based banks to have been named among Ethisphere’s World’s Most Ethical Companies® for several years. With a commitment to taking care of our customers, employees, communities and shareholders, our goal is not only to be the nation’s highest performing regional bank, but to be the bank people most value and trust.

Fifth Third Bank, National Association, is a federally chartered institution. Fifth Third Bancorp is the indirect parent company of Fifth Third Bank, and its common stock is traded on the NASDAQ® Global Select Market under the symbol “FITB.” Investor information and press releases can be viewed at www.53.com.

About Ethisphere

Ethisphere is the global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices that fuel corporate character, marketplace trust and business success. Ethisphere has deep expertise in measuring and defining core ethics standards using data-driven insights that help companies enhance corporate character. Ethisphere honors superior achievement through its World’s Most Ethical Companies® recognition program, provides a community of industry experts with the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA), and showcases trends and best practices in ethics with Ethisphere Magazine. Ethisphere also helps to advance business performance through data-driven assessments, guidance, and benchmarking against its unparalleled data: the Culture Quotient dataset focused on ethical culture and featuring the responses of 2+ million employees around the world; and the Ethics Quotient dataset, featuring 200+ data points highlighting the ethics, compliance, social, and governance practices of the World’s Most Ethical Companies. For more information, visit https://ethisphere.com.

Tony Moses, Ph.D., Fellow – Product Innovation, contributes to the conversation around alternative proteins, specifically precision fermentation for lab-grown dairy, in a recent article with The Washington Post. Tony offers his thoughts on the challenges companies are facing when it comes to bringing their products from the lab to consumers, including how those products are marketed.

Many brands are leaning into sustainability and cruelty-free messaging while avoiding explicit references to “alternative.” To their advantage, consumers are loyal to brands, not ingredients.

“Nestlé and Mars, they have the reach and the customers,” Moses told the Post. “They could position these new products as extensions of existing product lines, but the jury is still out on what the labels will say.”

Cow dairy companies have pushed back against plant-based milks using the word “milk” or “cheese”, but in February the FDA announced that oat, soy, and almond drinks can continue to use the word “milk” in their names. This battle around precise language will likely recur when additional precision dairy products reach the market. Future struggles with FDA regulations, competition with plant-based milk companies, and Americans’ increasing discomfort with processed food are all challenges that could strain start-ups.

“This is an industry that jumped to the market way faster than I thought it would, and part of that is the regulatory hurdles.” “Great things are happening in the lab, but it’s that getting to market, that commercialization piece, that is less certain.”– Tony Moses

The next generation of alt dairy is here, but the road to getting products to consumers holds challenges that will likely require manufacturers to front-load regulatory expertise into their plans and designs. Contact CRB to learn more about these challenges.

Read the full article: Moooove over: How single-celled yeasts are doing the work of 1,500-pound cows

Green hydrogen, or hydrogen generated by renewable energy, is fast becoming a strategic commodity for regions such as the European Union (EU) and Latin America as they transform into carbon-neutral economies. Green hydrogen is important not only to replace grey hydrogen as a raw material for the process industry but, more importantly, as an energy carrier with low CO2 equivalents (CO2e). It is one of the key technologies for decarbonizing industries such as steel, glass, and chemicals, as well as the transport sector.

In 2020, the EU identified green hydrogen as a cornerstone of a climate-neutral energy system to be in place by 2050. At that time, hydrogen accounted for less than two percent of Europe’s energy consumption and was primarily used to produce chemical products, such as plastics and fertilizers. Ninety-six percent of this hydrogen was produced with natural gas, resulting in significant amounts of CO2 emissions.

The other aspect driving this strategy is the need to reduce the dependency on imported fossil fuels. Diversification and access to new forms of renewable energy such as hydrogen will make the region more resilient.

The European Commission resolved to produce 10 million tons of renewable hydrogen and import 10 million tons by 2030. While green energy can be produced anywhere, countries with high availability of solar and wind energy such as Brazil offer more favorable conditions for efficient and affordable production. With its hydroelectric plants and policies favoring renewable energy as a substitute for fossil fuels, Brazil is a promising candidate for strategic green fuel trade partnerships with Europe.

However, Brazilian companies trading green hydrogen nationally and exporting it to regions such as the European Union must provide transparent proof of origin based on certification schemes.

The Public-Private Partnership between SAP and GIZ

In order to validate the general requirements and develop concepts for a software to support the green hydrogen certification for Brazil and Germany, SAP has formed a public-private partnership with the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ). To help Brazilian suppliers prove their hydrogen is truly green, the project will evaluate and summarize certification rules and test digital solutions as well.

“This cooperation aims to promote sustainable hydrogen projects in developing and emerging countries,” said Sabine Bendiek, chief people and operating officer and member of the Executive Board at SAP SE, after signing a Letter of Intent (LoI) outlining the understanding between all parties. The LoI was later countersigned by GIZ Brazil at a delegation ceremony attended by the German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, Robert Habeck.

“One of SAP’s first collaborative aspirations with GIZ is to develop a pilot project to digitize the hydrogen certification processes for Brazilian companies. We’re excited to work with GIZ on this project, which will eventually allow certification data to be exchanged and evaluated along the value chain in a tamperproof, cost-efficient, and traceable manner,” said Bendiek.

The GreenToken by SAP solution, for example, can provide supply chain transparency right back to the origin of any material using a blockchain based chain of custody for trust based on recognized standards such as ISCC PLUS, ISCC EU, and REDcert2. This unique digital twin on a blockchain approach can provide transparency into ESG (environmental, social, and governance) facts such as commodity origin, child labor, and recycled and/or sustainability status across company borders.

Building the Green Hydrogen Economy

“Brazil has the ideal conditions to become a global player in this area, including the infrastructure needed to create a relevant domestic market and become a major exporter of green hydrogen. This makes Brazil an excellent partner for countries like Germany that intend to import green hydrogen,” said Dr. Markus Francke, GIZ vice country director in Brazil. “As Brazilian hydrogen companies are looking to sell their products in domestic, European, and other markets, this project will help prepare them for the requirements of region-specific certification processes.”

Funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK), the results of the partnership are expected to benefit small and medium enterprises as well as large companies in Brazil.

While decarbonizing the economy, the development of a green hydrogen industry in parallel can boost economic growth and resilience, creating local jobs in countries that produce green hydrogen such as Brazil. The new partnership between SAP and GIZ will contribute significantly to developing the hydrogen economy in Brazil by creating the necessary proof points through reliable certification for Brazil, Germany, and – and through its compliance to European directives – the European Union Member States.

Southern Company has been named the top utility on Forbes magazine’s Best Large Employers in America 2023 rankings. Southern Company ranked nearly 100 places higher than the next peer company listed in the Utilities group by Forbes. Of the 500 large employers ranked, Southern Company was No. 15 overall. This is the second consecutive year Southern Company has been ranked in the top 15.

“Southern Company strives to be an industry leader. Being recognized among the best in the nation once again is an absolute honor,” said Southern Company chairman, president and CEO Tom Fanning. “This accolade is particularly gratifying because it is directly based on employee feedback. Southern Company is committed to creating a workplace where all groups are well represented, included and fairly treated within all levels of the organization and that everyone feels welcomed, valued and respected.”

Forbes partnered with market research firm Statista to anonymously survey approximately 45,000 Americans working for businesses with at least 5,000 employees. Participants were asked to rate their willingness to recommend their own employers to friends and family and to nominate organizations other than their own. The final list ranks the 500 large employers that received the most recommendations.

For complete large business rankings, read more about Forbes’ 2023 America’s Best Large Employers.

Name: Yu-Ting (Eileen) Lo

Company: Antea Group

Connect with Eileen on LinkedIn

Welcome to our series aimed at spotlighting the individual leaders within BIER member companies and stakeholder organizations. Learn how these practitioners and their companies are addressing pressing challenges around water, energy, agriculture, climate change, and what inspires each of them to advance environmental sustainability in the beverage sector and collectively, overall.

Briefly describe your role and responsibilities and how long you have worked with your company. 

I’m a senior project manager on the corporate reporting and disclosure team with Antea Group USA. Primarily, I support sustainable reporting projects, which include helping clients write their annual ESG reports, develop their reporting strategy, and support third-party sustainability questionnaire responses. I also support the BIER Benchmarking Study workstream. I contributed to the 2021 Water and Energy Use Benchmarking Study, and I’m working on the 2023 Benchmarking study now.

How has the benchmarking evolved over the years, and what are your specific priorities for 2023?

Originally the BIER benchmarking report focused only on water and energy performance. Over time and because of increasing importance and discussions regarding climate change, the BIER members expressed an interest in including scope 1 and 2 emissions in the benchmark report. Within the 2021 study, we looked at water, energy, and emissions metrics for global beverage facilities. We classified those facilities by their facility types, for instance, bottling facilities, wineries, distilleries, and breweries. In doing so, we provided the participating members with a global view of what the overall beverage industry performance looks like while also helping them to understand the sustainability performance of each facility type.

From my perspective, I think members are increasingly interested in what the best practices are for those top-performing facilities. In 2022, we took a further step from the 2021 benchmarking study and conducted a best-in-class analysis. In doing so, we took a deeper dive into those members with top-performing facilities and then tried to understand what are some of the technologies, tactics, or programs that they have in place that support them in improving and achieving higher performance among their peers.

For the upcoming benchmark report, we are in the final stages of defining what will be the key objectives of this benchmarking study. I think there are opportunities to collect additional qualitative information regarding how efficiency is being tracked and monitored and what strategies support members’ efficiency goals and sustainability programs.

Learn more about Eileen Lo in this BIER Stakeholder Spotlight.

Global climate change is a driving force behind the growing urgency across all industries to embrace more substantial environmental, social, and governance initiatives. This year will see several new ESG-focused environmental and financial reporting regulations take effect in major markets around the world.

As an innovation leader, the tech industry is set to take a more prominent role in ESG spaces. Let’s take a look at what’s happening now and what’s coming next for ESG in the tech industry.

ESG: A Quick Overview

ESG is a framework for evaluating the health and sustainability of an organization based on environmental, social, and governance factors.

Environmental: Impacts on the natural world, such as carbon footprint, sustainability initiatives, and adherence to applicable environmental regulations.

Social: Impacts on people, such as diversity and inclusion programs, corporate/community relationships, adherence to labor laws, and humanitarian labor practices.

Governance: How an organization is run, such as the composition of the board, executive compensation, and whistleblower protections.

ESG and the Tech Industry

The tech industry has already been making an impact in ESG spaces. Tech giants Apple and Salesforce were among those requesting more stringent regulations around ESG reporting.

While on the surface an industry requesting more regulation may seem counter-intuitive, the tech sector does stand to benefit from driving ESG forward, in terms of appeal to both investors and consumers.

The future of investment is ESG

ESG-rated investment funds have performed well in spite of recent market concerns, and organizations that have already done the hard work of achieving an ESG rating are ready to compete in the new ESG-focused capital market.

This competition will pick up soon. The SEC’s climate disclosure regulation is slated to come online in 2023 and includes disclosure of Scope 3 emissions, which are emissions that originate from upstream and downstream activities in the value chain.

What does this mean for the tech industry? To remain competitive, tech companies that offer digital solutions will need to have a strong ESG rating so they don’t impact the Scope 3 emissions of the companies that use their software or service.

Improving infrastructure & efficiency in data

Scrutiny of the tech sector’s environmental and social impact has made headlines recently, with reports of excess water and energy use to sustain data centers.

In response to skyrocketing demand for data center facilities and the subsequent expansion of their carbon footprint, tech industry leaders are working on creating solutions that will enable data expansion in more efficient ways.

These initiatives include:

The European Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact, which pledges to make data centers climate-neutral by 2030.The Open Compute Project, which is working to redesign hardware technology to increase computing efficiency.The 24/7 Carbon-free Energy Compact, a project of the United Nations and Sustainable Energy for All, signed by Google, Microsoft, and Iron Mountain.DIMPACT, a project by Carnstone and the University of Bristol that measures and reports the carbon footprint of digital services.

Governments are also investing in improved infrastructure, with the US Department of Energy announcing $42 million to aid in the development of more energy-efficient cooling systems. 

Diversity in the Tech Industry

While the environmental component in ESG typically receives outsized attention, the social factors are just as important for the well-being of global citizens.

The tech sector has made strides in recent years to address diversity disparities, but with the recent volume of layoffs by major tech companies, those gains are at risk of being erased.

Reporting by Reuters revealed that job losses between September and December of 2022 impacted women and Latinos at a higher rate, with tech employees belonging to these minority groups making up 46.64% and 11.49% of the tech layoffs respectively.

Even prior to the layoffs, a study by S&P Global found that one in three women in tech reported being sexually harassed in the workplace, signaling a need for improvement in workplace culture within the tech sector.

Moving forward, tech leaders will need to evaluate the alignment of their diversity policies and hiring practices in light of their ESG targets.

How Tech Innovation Can Drive ESG for All

One of the greatest opportunities for the tech industry at this moment lies in creating the next generation of technology that can curb climate change and improve systems used to combat existing consequences.

Alongside improved green energy storage and technology used to combat forest fires with AI and machine learning-powered drones, there are opportunities for tech to help other industries reach their ESG goals.

The analysis, reporting, and storage of ESG-related data present a problem for many industries – one that tech can resolve. A recent McKinsey report on the impact of ESG in banking cited an opportunity for tech to make a significant difference. “Banks must adapt their IT systems to systematically collect, aggregate, and report on a broad range of ESG data.”

As Microsoft President Brad Smith recently noted, “Cloud-based digital services, the better use of data, and rapid advances in AI will create new opportunities for us to help every organization achieve more progress in addressing the world’s climate and energy needs.”

To learn more about the impacts of ESG in the tech industry and how your business can prepare, connect with our team of experts today. 

The global water crisis continues to churn, with climate change driving unforeseen weather conditions that have led to droughts, floods, and damaging storms. The urgency of the moment is reflected in the headlines: Record flooding in California has given the drought-stricken state a temporary reprieve; France and Italy are bracing for water scarcity this growing season after a lackluster snow total this winter; and the EPA has proposed new limits to the amount of PFAS in municipal drinking water. 

At the heart of each of those headlines is the same topic: water stewardship.

How we care for our water will significantly impact the global community across the coming decades. Fortunately, there are already organizations who are committed to being strong stewards of our most precious natural resource. 

As we observe World Water Day this year, we wanted to focus our attention on the good work being done by corporations committed to water stewardship. 
 

The CEO Water Mandate

In the summer of 2007, a group of corporate executives met at a UN Leaders Summit and launched the CEO Water Mandate, an initiative that brought private and public entities together “with a focus on developing strategies and solutions to contribute positively to the emerging global water crisis.” 

Since its inception, 240 member organizations of the UN Global Compact have endorsed the visions and objectives of the CEO Water Mandate. These companies have agreed to review water usage within their organizations as it relates to direct operations, supply chain, and watershed management. 

This is just one of the actions spurring corporate leaders around the globe to take ownership of their role in ensuring access to safe, clean water. 
 

The Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS)

The AWS Standard was developed through a four-year global, multi-stakeholder consultation seeking a framework that could be implemented by any site, in any sector, in any catchment around the world.

AWS is a global membership collaboration comprising businesses, NGOs and the public sector. They contribute to the sustainability of local water-resources through their adoption and promotion of a universal framework for the sustainable use of water – the International Water Stewardship Standard, or AWS Standard – that drives, recognizes and rewards good water stewardship performance. Their mission is to ignite and nurture global and local leadership in credible water stewardship that recognizes and secures the social, cultural, environmental and economic value of freshwater. Our global Associates and many multi-national corporations use this framework, and Inogen Alliance is an official sponsor of the AWS Forum event in Scotland. 
 

Leaders in Corporate Water Stewardship

From a broad range of industries, these leaders are demonstrating that corporations can enact policies and practices that make a difference. 
 

1. Anheuser-Busch

Industry: Beverage

Location: United States 

What they’re doing: As a beverage company, Anheuser-Busch understands the importance of drinkable water, both at the corporate and community level. They have committed to improving watersheds in the communities around the globe where they have a presence, ensuring the security and longevity of aquifers they access, and helping others who access those same resources enact more sustainable practices, such as converting local farms to drip irrigation solutions that use water more efficiently.

2. General Mills

Industry: Food Producers

Location: United States

What they’re doing: General Mills has launched a regenerative agriculture pilot program in the state of Kansas. In conjunction with Ecotone Analytics, they conducted an impact study to determine the social return on investment for the project. The findings show an incredible 400% return, with benefits including reduced soil erosion, increased carbon sequestration, and improved surface water quality.

 

3. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)

Industry: Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology

Location: United Kingdom

What they’re doing: Working with the Water Resilience Coalition, GSK has identified eight water basins in water-stressed regions where they have a presence, and are working toward water neutrality at those locations. Their site in Cape Town, South Africa, has reduced water usage from the municipal supply by 12% over five years. GSK has a goal of being completely water neutral at their own operations and within key suppliers in stressed regions by 2030.

 

4. Woolworths Holdings

Industry: General Retailers

Location: South Africa

What they’re doing: Cotton is a significant resource for Woolworth’s fashion divisions. As such, they have committed to reducing water waste across their value chain by working with farmers to enact sustainable cotton farming practices through organizations such as Better Cotton, which “promote the usage of less water and fewer chemicals when growing and harvesting the cotton.”

There are also a great number of chemicals used in the production of textiles – some quite hazardous, which threaten water quality. Woolworths has eliminated hazardous chemicals from 97% of their products, including textiles.

 

5. Kurita Water Industries Ltd.

Industry: Industrial Engineering

Location: Japan

What they’re doing: Kurita is at the forefront of water stewardship, having had a hand in water treatment since the 1950s. They have committed to reducing water waste for their customers through innovation and systems that more efficiently circulate water as well as wastewater collection and cleaning. They have optimized a water recovery treatment process that enabled them to recover 70% of the water used in certain processes.

 

6. Coca-Cola Company

Industry: Beverages

Location: United States

What they’re doing: In 2009 Coca-Cola launched the RAIN program, developing a network of more than 300 public and private partners working to address water needs at the community level. Since then, RAIN has worked on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) projects that have impacted the lives of 6 million people across 41 countries and territories. Their key focus is on watershed protection, productive use of water, and WASH access.

 

7. Danone

Industry: Food Producers

Location: France

What they’re doing: Danone has also taken a localized approach to water stewardship. Based on analysis of local water cycles by hydrogeological experts deployed in areas deemed a priority for water conservation, they have been able to create site-specific action plans that:

Preserve water resources throughout its value chain.Rethink circularity within and around the production sites.Provide access to safe drinking water for vulnerable people and communities.

One of their first steps is working in partnership with farmers to promote regenerative agriculture practices that foster healthy ecosystems and work with the local watershed.

 

8. Levi-Strauss

Industry: Personal Goods

Location: United States

What they’re doing: Levi-Strauss has been working since 2010 on their Water<Less® initiative, which optimizes water use in apparel production. They also are working collaboratively with other organizations in their industry and beyond by sharing their Water Action Strategy open-source. 

Their 2025 Water Action Strategy includes goals to create water usage efficiencies across all operations, not simply those in water-stress regions.

 

9. InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG)

Industry: Travel & Leisure

Location: United Kingdom

What they’re doing: As a member of the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS), IHG has been able to work collaboratively with other organizations to “collectively advance water stewardship and preserve the world’s fresh water.” Their hotels have seen a reduction in water usage, and in 2021, they worked with Water.org to deliver quality access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) for communities in India, Indonesia, and Mexico. 
 

10. Ecolab

Industry: Support Services

Location: United States

What they’re doing: As an industry steeped in water-related products and services, Ecolab has long been tuned in to the global need for waste reduction and water conservation. As founding members of the Water Resilience Coalition and the Alliance for Water Stewardship, Ecolab strives to work not only internally but with customers as well to improve water use efficiencies. In 2021 alone, Ecolab worked with their customers to conserve more than 215 billion gallons of water. 

Ecolab’s goal is to restore more than 50% of their total water withdrawal by 2030. 

11. Kimberly-Clark

Industry: Paper-based products

Location: United States

What they’re doing: Kimberly-Clark mills require considerable amounts of water for the production of their paper-based consumer goods. High water demands coupled with Kimberly-Clark’s ambitious water security milestones have led to the development of WaterLOUPE, an innovative, open-source water-risk and water availability screening tool, which aims to be rolled out to all manufacturing facilities as well as local watershed Stakeholders.

12. L’Oréal

Industry: Cosmetics

Location: France

What they’re doing: As one of the largest cosmetics companies in the world, l’Oréal has also been amongst the leading companies in the sector to promote innovative water-reduction strategies. By launching the concept of a dry factory, in which potable water is used only in the composition of the products and for human consumption, by 2030 l’Oréal aims to recycle and reuse water used in industrial processes by 100%. Currently, l’Oréal has three dry factories at Burgos in Spain, Vorsino in Russia, and Settimo Torinese in Italy, all of which are inspiring ideas for other plants around the world.

 

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Originally published by Ericsson

The ever-increasing demand for data combined with a need to reduce energy consumption to reach Net Zero presents new challenges for network operators.Ericsson experts have found that efficient monitoring and tracking supported by revolutionary AI can identify optimization areas to reduce RAN energy use by up to 12 percent annually.Below, we walk you through our ML-based recommendation engine that generates energy-efficient configuration settings for network nodes.

At present cellular operators are seeking to reduce an ever-increasing energy bill which accounts for 5-7 percent of their operating expenditure. At the same time, in the coming years with more countries moving to 5G, like enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB), ultra-reliable low latency communications (URLLC) and massive machine type communications (mMTC) may require more sites, in turn negating some of the gains obtained via energy efficient parameter configuration. In addition, any measure that operators take in terms of reduced energy consumption should not impact the network performance or any of the service level agreements for these.

Energy efficiency at the RAN

Each LTE and 5G radio transmitter consumes electric power to control and transmit shared channels for user data and broadcast channels for control information. Shared channels consume slightly less electric power when user traffic is low, but broadcast channels and control circuits always consume constant power. There are means to disable or shut down cells and wake them up when required according to pre-configured scheduling parameters, but they do not consider or adapt to the subscriber experience impact of disabling these entities. AI/ML mechanisms are required to dynamically learn, adapt and act upon the best balance of power savings and subscriber experience at each cell site and radio.

Operators are already adjusting radio network requirements (such as added layers of spectrum, cell density and associated energy costs) to keep up with peak capacity demands. But much of this incremental investment is under-utilized and inefficient when demand is below peak. There is a need to reconfigure and control cells dynamically, to serve dynamic traffic patterns, not just peak traffic.

The sites and cells deployed in a network may be classified as underlaid (coverage) and overlaid (capacity). When an overlaid capacity cell is turned off, the traffic load existing in the overlaid cell is offloaded to underlaid (coverage) cells. The underlaid (coverage) cell monitors traffic conditions and key performance measures like access to the network, service quality, retainability and mobility to allow the overlaid (capacity) cell to go into sleep mode and turn on the sleeping cells when required. Once overlaid cells are turned off for energy saving reasons, the reference signal interference in the network is also reduced, improving UE throughput, and reducing operating expenditure. This phenomenon of sleeping cells with generic and static configured parameter thresholds may result in coverage loss or not using the spectrum efficiently with no optimum energy saving. This capability of cell sleep and wake up detection should be adaptive to network traffic conditions, radio resources availability, user density, service usage, user experience and overall network performance to provide best energy efficiency.

One size does not fit all

It is a known fact that the radio access network (RAN) accounts for nearly about 80- 85 percent of overall energy consumption. Depending on the geographical location and varying data traffic loads, it would be wise to put some of the capacity cells into sleep and wake them based on the traffic demand. The image below shows a cluster of cells with different energy consumption in accordance with user and network activity and depicts how not all cells need the same energy to meet the traffic demand.

This calls for having a customized approach for each capacity cell to be in a sleep or awake state. An ML/AI based approach expands the potential for such energy-saving opportunities across the network at cell level. One of the solutions is enabling dynamic thresholds configuration for cell sleep mode for coverage & capacity.

AI based dynamic thresholds for cell sleep mode

Enabling and controlling the cell sleep mode based on the physical resource block (PRB) utilization and RRC connection-based thresholds, without impacting the customer experience, needs a careful monitoring of key performance scenarios like network availability, reliability, traffic pattern, services offered and spectrum usage, while considering same of neighboring cells as well. To achieve this, it is important to determine the utilization of each cell layer for the next few days and, most importantly, to determine the impact on customer experience for the same period.

One example is a renowned CSP that was exploring avenues to optimize RAN energy consumption without degrading network performance and customer experience. In the current scenario Ericsson provides static thresholds to be set manually through the cell sleep mode feature, however, the team proposed setting thresholds dynamically. To determine the values for this threshold dynamically, it was necessary to conduct field experiments on a live network as there was no variation in data due to static nature in CSM.

The image above portrays the following:

1. High Level Solution: Energy consumption forecasting model

2. Methodology: Optimal configuration threshold grid search model

3. Model Fitting: Threshold validation on live network

4. Optimised Scenario: Impact analysis

The forecasting model predicts energy consumption levels per cell for a day in advance. It provides an idea for the optimization model for possible improvements in terms of various performance KPIs like accessibility (QCI9, QCI5 & QCI1), retainability, mobility, latency, throughput and traffic volume.

The optimization model determines the dynamic threshold at cell level at which a capacity cell should be awakened or put to sleep based on RRC Connections and PRB Utilization. In this case, it was considered as a convex optimization problem, with the objective function to maximize the sleep hours subjected to various constraints like business constraints (for example user experience or operational expenditure) or technical constraints (such as accessibility during coverage hole detection, drop call rate, average sector loading, location estimation, mobility, and lower latency handling in case of URLLC use cases).

Impact of the solution

Target exceeded: 10-12 percent energy reduction across pilot sitesNo degradation in RRC, ERAB Success Rate and Call Drop Rate across all bandsStable traffic volume, mobility success rate and latencyStable DL/UL Throughput and other primary KPIs against historical trend

Our research shows a few more areas that operators can focus on reducing energy consumption

MIMO Sleep: ML-enabled MIMO path and radio head control for energy savings using optimal MIMO configuration resulting in optimal power efficiency and performance balance for various traffic conditions. This learns power savings and network performance under various traffic loads, then activates and deactivates MIMO paths according to trained models.IoT based energy optimization: Smart Homes, Smart Factories & equipments, Smart Health monitoring, shipping & Logistics etc., are utilizing various interconnected devices to autonomously manage intent operations, which consumes a lot of energy, resulting in a need for energy optimization. A function of IoT devices is to reliably collect and share the perceived data with the physical world. The hardware element of the IoT device consists of a battery-powered sensor, an actuator, and a communication system. IoT sensors, cloud computing technologies and the telco network with the help of AI based techniques (events and data driven), improve productivity and energy efficiency.Smart green sourcing: Green Sourcing refers to the purchase of goods and services that cause minimal adverse environmental impact. The demand for recyclable products, energy-efficient systems, and clean technology and fuels is driving the adoption of ecologically responsible business norms. In green sourcing, concerns about environmental impact are given weight over other business decisions to reduce pollution. Sunsetting legacy systems and equipment is key in bringing sustainable smart green sourcing.Machine learning algorithms for HetNet traffic pattern: Energy-aware platforms analyze events through AI/ML and reinforcement learning (RL), to allow proactive energy savings coupled with reduced CO2 emissions in Heterogeneous Network (HetNet) architecture. Advanced frameworks for optimally handling the switching on or off of sleeping cells, in case of low latency services without impacting the QoS, take mobility prediction, UE location estimation and network environment into consideration.

Summary

The dynamic threshold for cell sleep mode is a unique solution that can be adapted by any operator. This solution can be used for optimal gains in energy consumption across the network. Making use of the huge volumes of data pertaining to attempts, handover and real-time demand, this ML-based approach enables highly efficient, fast, and automated decisions on the RAN components that can be put into sleep mode, thereby saving energy. The estimated energy-saving using this AI solution is up to 10-12% for some operators, in addition to any other savings that are gained from site-level efficiency measure.

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