Introduction

Every industrial innovation has made the life of humankind easier. From bullock carts to Airplanes, the technology has taken a giant leap. With technological advancement and improvement in our production, there has been a constant rise in the resulting consequences like pollution, soil degradation, and global warming. To curb these consequences, the governments of all the nations are actively working together with The Paris Agreement and imposing several laws on industries. To be compliant with these laws, every industry searches for a sustainability solution. This article will answer “Do we really need sustainability solutions for Industries?”

What are the Sustainable Enterprises?

A sustainable enterprise is the one that can manage its carbon footprints, reduce its material waste, achieve social sustainability, and enable a future with zero emissions, zero waste, and zero inequality.

What are the Sustainability Solutions for Industries?

There are a lot of ERP Industries in the market, and many of them offer different types of solutions for businesses to make their organization sustainable. These ERP companies mainly focus on these solutions:

• Sustainability and ESG Reporting Solutions: This mainly focuses on the compliance with local Governments’ ESG norms
• Climate Change Solutions: This mainly focuses upon the insights related to the carbon footprint of the organization
• Circular Economy Solutions: This mainly focuses on sustainable supply chain best practices and solutions
• Social Responsibility Solutions: This primarily focuses on the diversity and inclusion within the organization

The major players in these solutions are:

• Sustainable business solutions and services from SAP
• Oracle Solutions Enabling Sustainability
• Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability

Do we really need Sustainability Solutions for Industries?

Let us discuss a use case of one industry, that is Railways. Initially, all the trains used to run using steam engines, and then there was a revolutionary invention of Diesel engines. The new solution was more efficient and required less human effort. But since then, the rise of Air pollution has been unstoppable, and with that, the number of diseases and health issues related to it. In 2019, deaths reported due to Air pollution ranked third worldwide.

Figure 1: Air pollution is responsible for millions of deaths each year

The air pollution generated by train engines was just one example of how one industry can impact the entire nation. The electrification and up-gradation of diesel engines to electric motors drastically changed the contribution percentage of the railway to Air pollution.

Figure 2: Electric and hydrogen rail: Potential contribution to net zero in the UK

We can conclude that a sustainability solution is suitable for earth and human beings; hence, future-oriented planning is required to implement the same. A few effective solutions are listed below:

• Inclusion of Hybrid Equipment in industries that runs via electric, hydrogen, and conventional energy sources like diesel and petrol.
• Identification of carbon footprints and their replacement with available sustainable solutions in the market
• Looking for Oil Decarbonisation solutions
• Identification of Climate dependent risks and using analytics to improvise the solutions
• Track, reduce, reuse, recycle and analyze the entire cycle

To implement, track and analyze the above solutions, industries will certainly require ERP companies that work towards Sustainable business solutions and services.