How manufacturing firms can balance sustainability and business development 

Industry leaders weigh in on sustainability's influence on the future of manufacturing.

Integrating sustainable solutions has been a standard for many companies nowadays, especially as customers clamour for more eco-friendly production, processes, and overall operations no matter the industry.

In an intimate discussion led by Francisco Betti, a member of the Executive Committee of the World Economic Forum, industry leaders weighed in on how to properly integrate sustainability in different projects and causes without losing other important aspects of the business.

Koen de Backer, Vice President for Smart Manufacturing & Artificial Intelligence in Micron Technology, started the discussion by noting that the demand for companies to be more sustainable continues to be present in any industry.

“The demand is there for more sustainable products from a perspective of performance… Our overall footprint or ecological footprint is quite significant. And as an industry, if we don't do anything about it, that is a massive problem to solve,” Koen said.

To properly execute projects, being practical and meticulous will play a big part in a company’s success in the long term.

“See which of the technologies are mature enough to already go off or in terms of having the right ROIs and having the right benefits behind it… Over time, we can make these technologies available at a more economical type of rate,” he added.

For Philippe Metzger, Sec-Gen and CEO of the International Electrotechnical Committee, finding ways to digitise and engage more with the younger generation are some of the key factors that can help a company navigate to becoming more sustainable as a whole.

“We can only be successful in that if we also fundamentally contribute to digitalization in these processes through standards… and for us, what is also very important in our case is that we can engage the younger generation,” he said.

“We have an established program where we engage young professionals through their national committee…we have to be able to transform ourselves, we have to do it in a way that is, of course, everybody wants to do things very, very quickly. But it still has to be somewhat evolutionary because we cannot just be in a global setting like that and throw everything overboard. We have different needs to take [note] before as well,” Philippe added.

SAJ Kumar, Regional Business Lead in Manufacturing for Microsoft Asia, gave a more definitive example.

“Our stated goal [is to be] carbon negative by 2030 and water positive by 2030. To achieve that, what we want to make sure of is the right from designing the products from a plastics perspective… but fundamentally, from the way we manage the data and operations, we look at our manufacturing which largely outsources not just the machines that are operating from an OE productivity perspective, but also from an energy consumption perspective,” he said.

Viswanath Ramaswamy, VP and GM for Western Digital Malaysia, jumped on the discussion, saying that another key issue to consider is how to collaborate with other figures and companies to achieve sustainability goals.

“Some are ahead of the game, in terms of how they're transitioning to green energy… [and] trying to influence and explain to them that these are the opportunities that are right ahead. And that's where we need to kind of deviate from just going down the path.”

Philippe added a couple of important points that may help companies facing the same issues, by mainly highlighting the importance of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and knowing the real purpose behind going sustainable.

“We want to go beyond that. We want to become much more deliberate in targeting gaps that we have today in standardisation, where we can develop standards and performance assessments that will specifically help Sustainable Development Goals. And that's why the analysis, the measurement, the analysis is so important,” he said.

“To come to an even more deliberate action, our action is the output in standards conformity assessment, where the outcome contributes to the greater good and sustainability so that we want to go further in this journey and be even more deliberate… We want to preserve our outputs with our results. We want to serve the global community economy, but also society.”