Industrial Automation Magazine India

Our mission is to be a digital partner for sustainability and efficiency

Published on : Tuesday 04-04-2023

Rajat Kishore, Managing Director, Schneider Electric Systems India Private Limited.

The perils of climate change are showing up by the day. Many meetings have taken place at the top-most level. Which are the areas where significant progress has been achieved, specifically in India?
It is easy and simplistic to say that India needs to do much more than what have been committed, because it is so far away. However, one has to recognise that the challenge for India is unique, with its huge population and poverty, India needs to on one hand continue to grow its economy and uplift people, but do so without increasing carbon emission. That is quite a paradox in itself. 
 
Having said that, there's a lot of commitment and actions, which have been put in place. The full realisation of how exactly that will translate to India becoming a net zero country is still far away because of the sheer magnitude of task to be done. But the good thing is that policies have already been put in place. The so-called entities, the companies which are in a particular sector, have all been told to be a bit more aggressive in terms of how exactly they have to improve. The power sector has been put to task, transportation has been put to task and several kinds of after policy level interventions, sectoral level interventions are already happening. So that's progress.
 
Bottom line is that earlier there was the intent, now it has been put into commitment to follow through execution.
 
Many companies have ventured out to provide products and solutions towards the goal of reducing climate impact. What is the record of your company in this aspect? Which products have been redesigned to help to achieve net zero? Which products are directly focused to reduce and measure emissions?
For Schneider, Sustainability has been our vision for a long time, and we are the only company in our sector, which has been in the Global Top 100 on Sustainability since 2012 and we were the best ranked company in 2021 and onwards. We do understand how climate change and sustainability has to be addressed.
 
Typically, our approach is a three-step approach. We strategise, We digitise and We decarbonise!
 
And this three-step approach is not just to redesign products or build new offers, it's a mix of service intervention and product and solution level intervention as well as awareness. 
 
It starts with awareness and then from there a vision which we paint and then we know how exactly to educate people who are lesser in maturity through service offerings.
 
Basically, we have a holistic approach across people, process and technology which we are addressing through both services as well as offers. One typical call-out is our EcoStruxure Power & Process offering (EP&P) wherein we digitise to converge electrical, energy and automation cycles creating an automatic sustainability impact.
 
Leading technology companies have set their own goals and a few even claim they are climate neutral. Is there a mechanism to monitor and verify such claims?
So, there is absolutely a very clear way to monitor and verify this is clearly the reason why Schneider is among the best in addressing climate change as well as sustainability. A tool, which was initially just a very preliminary tool called as Resource Advisor, has become one of the strongest reasons why customers want to partner with us because that allows you to measure not just Scope 1, Scope 2, but also extend that to Scope 3. This is the buzzword right now because Scope 3 is not necessarily something which people feel we can address effectively, but we have very clear processes and tools to be able to measure all across and make sure that basically these are verifiable and can be validated by external sources.
 
What automation strategies are available for manufacturers to move towards net zero? What mechanisms are available to measure and monitor the impact?

Sustainability is very close to our heart. Our mission is to be our customers’ digital partner for sustainability and efficiency. These are not mutually exclusive – digital, sustainability and efficiency are the axis along which our company's purpose is built and we know exactly how to move forward. 
 
As we already stated earlier, EcoStruxure Power and Process is one specific offer which shows how convergence between electrical, energy and automation can be brought together to say how that can be used to make sure that we are going to make some tangible progress towards meeting our climate goals and towards net zero. We have the widest software portfolio in the industry to implement mechanisms beyond the edge into the Apps and Analytics layer and mature towards sustainability.
 
The measurement and monitoring of the impact is a mix of the understanding of the process and of how the real time external measurements are to be brought onto a centralised platform. There need to be some investments made into data collection and sensors. Investment can be in a phased manner, we can still have an RoI discussion to nudge and move the needle, and then try to use that to justify further investments as you move forward.
 
Nevertheless, there are times when there are no clear measurements in the field. That is when maturity and understanding of the methodology becomes very important. Understanding of how exactly to make assumptions, reasonable assumptions that can help in tracking and making some tangible progress. 
 
The methodology is what we are constantly maturing. It is not something that has been thought about overnight, we are learning this through conducting various exercises with our customers. We ran vision and aspiration workshops to say what it means for a company to be sustainable and how that can potentially be measured when you are low in maturity. How do we actually decide whether we should have a strategy to reduce or to replace? Or ways we have to address sustainability. 
 
How can digital technologies – digitalisation, cloud, IoT and AI – help achieve the net-zero goal? Many companies in India are still struggling to transform themselves. So, would it be a good strategy to put net zero ahead of other business goals?
In my opinion, net zero as a business goal is not a choice anymore. It is a mandate from COP 27 to countries, to states, to companies. Basically, the triple bottom line is a concept which clearly states that you cannot just focus on your top line and bottom line. You have a mandatory third axis that you have to address, which basically means put net zero ahead. This means that besides the imperative to be profitable, one needs to be sustainable as a business. 

For companies today, to build any competitive advantage is not going to be easy without a net zero plan. Even financing institutions are going to assess how the company is doing on their net zero plans before they think about funding some of their growth and expansion plans. It is therefore now an integral part of the company's investor relations strategy and their future growth as well. 
 
Now the three axes which I mentioned earlier, the third axis is digital. Today, Digital is an important enabler for us to progress. There are various strategies to start, but under most circumstances if you start off on the cloud the scaling impact is most significant. But there are times when our customers have certain constraints on access, because of which you can go bottom up in a measured manner and keep justifying till the time you can completely move on to the cloud.
 
We, at Schneider Electric, are getting into AI based energy management. AI-based energy management can play a critical role in achieving net zero goals and improving energy efficiency and sustainability. By using advanced analytics and machine learning algorithms, AI-based energy management systems can continuously monitor and analyse energy usage data to identify patterns and anomalies, optimise energy consumption, and detect inefficiencies.
 
Moreover, by using closed-loop mechanisms, such systems can automatically adjust energy usage in real-time and provide recommendations to optimise energy consumption, even without human intervention. This can help organisations to achieve their energy efficiency and sustainability goals, reduce their carbon footprint, and save on energy costs.
 
Overall, AI-based energy management is a powerful tool for organisations looking to optimise their energy usage, reduce their carbon footprint, and achieve net zero goals. 
 
Building automation is an important area where a lot of potential exists. In fact, Schneider Electric's IntenCity, France, is quoted as a good example of this – is this replicable on a large scale?
Yes, the replicability and scaling up is quite usual. The term ‘building automation’ may suggest a focus on buildings specifically, it can also be used to refer to the automation of various systems and processes within a broader facility context. Buildings, whether they are residential, commercial, or industrial, are a significant contributor to carbon emissions. Therefore, building automation and energy management solutions can play an important role in reducing energy consumption and emissions across different types of facilities. By extending the focus on building automation and energy management to include different types of facilities, organisations can take a more holistic approach to reducing their carbon footprint and achieving sustainability goals.

Achieving carbon neutrality has been a growing trend in the building industry over the past few years; we may start to see large national oil companies and other organisations making announcements about their first carbon-neutral facilities, whether achieved through offsets or other strategies. While some may criticise the use of offsets, it's still a step in the right direction towards reducing carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality. 
 
Schneider's experience in building sustainable lighthouse facilities and smart factories positions them well to help other organisations in the transition towards carbon neutrality. 
 
We have built our own smart factories implementing the EcoStruxure Architecture, and they are our testimony as sustainable lighthouses.We know how these buildings need to actually embark on the journey and how they can be replicated each year, so we are pitching our own factories to compete against each other. It's a healthy competition so-called where we have the ability to measure a smart factory score and even a sustainability score for our smart factory and people then say that I want to be the most Sustainable Smart factory in the region or within the country in case there are multiple factories. So, we know better and better to drive this program through healthy competition internally and we are open to sharing these best practices with our customers as well.
 
A major hurdle today for most organisations is they simply do not have the technical know-how or expertise to meet the progressive targets. This is not a major topic in the engineering curriculum. What steps are needed to address this?
It all starts with awareness, then to training, from training to strategy building and then building some commitments and measuring them. 
 
At Schneider, we have been doing this internally as well as externally. We have spoken about our internal strategies and smart factories.
 
We are helping to build awareness and provide training to people on the importance of energy as a basic human right.
 
Everyone should have access to clean and affordable energy, and we are working to educate individuals and communities about energy management and efficiency to help make this a reality. We start with that and then we run through our corporate session ability mission. Within India we are running various programs on awareness building as well as training.
 
Schneider is also supporting efforts by Universities who are taking steps to educate students and raise awareness about the importance of sustainability. We are partnering with universities to provide practical learning opportunities and hands-on experience in sustainability topics. We are also working closely with the governments.
 
The engineering curriculum too is evolving. Increasingly topics related to sustainability, such as life cycle assessments, energy management, and energy efficiency are finding a place. Similarly, MBA programs are also incorporating sustainability strategy into their curriculum. We are seeing a growing interest among students, including engineers, in building purpose-based careers with a focus on sustainability. 
 
We believe that every discipline within an organisation should have a link to sustainability, and we are working to promote this idea to ensure that sustainability is integrated into all aspects of business and society. 
 
While it may be a long path, we are seeing significant progress and a growing commitment to building a more sustainable future.
 
Finally, even for leading tech companies, Scope 3 emissions remain a concern. What kind of policy intervention is required to address such concerns?
Scope 3 emissions are a consequence of the activities of the company, but occur from sources not owned or controlled by the company. Scope 3 emissions can represent the largest source of emissions for companies and present the most significant opportunities to influence GHG reductions and achieve a variety of GHG-related business objectives. In spite of its larger impact, Scope 3 is currently an optional reporting category. This is primarily due to the challenge in capturing Scope 3 emissions for a company in its supply chain, which includes tens of thousands of suppliers and hundreds of thousands of equipment orders for its own factories and the ability to influence and build capacity in these partners for reporting and adherence.
 
Consequently, there is a demand for an internationally accepted method for Scope 3 emissions management across a company's value chain. A Scope 3 Standard that provides requirements and guidance for companies and other organisations to prepare and publicly report such emissions resulting from value chain activities (Scope 3 emissions). There are already such standards available that provide a standardised step-by-step approach to help companies understand their full value chain emissions impact in order to focus company efforts on the greatest GHG reduction opportunities. The issue is adoption and the only way to push this is through policy thrust by Governments across the Globe.
 
On its part, India has pledged to reach net zero emissions by 2070 at COP26. As a step towards achieving this long term goal, the Indian Cabinet in 2022 approved India's Updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC). The approval translates Prime Minister 'Panchamrit' announced at COP 26 into enhanced climate targets. India now stands committed to reduce Emissions Intensity of its GDP by 45 percent by 2030. This Updated NDC will be implemented over the period 2021-2030 through programs and schemes of relevant Ministries/departments, seeking to enhance India's contributions towards achievement of the strengthening of global response to the threat of climate change.  Recognising that lifestyle has a big role in climate change, the Hon'ble Prime Minister of India, at COP 26, proposed a concept of mass movement called 'LIFE' – 'Lifestyle for Environment'. The vision of LIFE is to live a lifestyle that is in tune with our planet and does not harm it. India's updated NDC also captures this citizen centric approach to combat climate change. This updated framework, together with other Government initiatives like Production Linked Incentive scheme for promotion of manufacturing and adoption of renewable energy, will cover India's transition to cleaner energy as well as enhance India's manufacturing capabilities and exports and an overall increase in green jobs. Companies operating in India will be mandated to achieve the targets of this Updated NDC and the only way to achieve this ambition would be by implementing and reporting Scope 3 emissions.
 
At Schneider, we are at the forefront to address the challenge of capturing Scope 3 emissions and are therefore best placed to support the Government in achieving its targets. We have launched a targeted program to work with the top 10,000 suppliers to accelerate Scope 3 visibility and develop strategies to address these emissions. This program has been successful in promoting discussions about Scope 3 with customers, who now see it as the most important area to focus on for impact.
 
In many high technology projects, an external knowledgeable party is of great benefit to evaluate and recommend different offerings and handhold management in the decision process. How can India develop such third-party competent agencies? What is already available?
Schneider, with its rich history and sustainability vision, has been a natural partner for customers seeking sustainability advice. We have been publishing sustainability reports for over a decade and have acted as an advisor for sustainability-related discussions. However, we do not claim to be the most significant player in the field of sustainability, but rather sees the impact of the community as a whole as the most important. We are committed to supporting education and training to help promote sustainable practices and ensure a brighter future for the planet.
 
It is important to recognise that strategy consulting and sustainability consulting are not the same thing. While it is possible to learn about sustainability, there is a need for a separate approach to link it to an offer or a solution. Without this, a strategy can remain just a dream, and the challenge lies in executing it. Schneider has been successful in bridging this gap by not only building strategies but also providing clear roadmaps for execution. To bring more sustainable dreams into reality, the industry needs more professionals who can provide both strategy and execution.
 
Would net zero be a good topic to include in an Automation Expo?
Most definitely! 
 
The link of automation to building a sustainable or a greener world, how exactly that's going to be explored has to be a big part of any forward looking Automation Expo of today. Schneider is more than willing to participate as a key player in this.
 
Rajat Kishore, Managing Director of Schneider Electric Systems India Private Limited (formerly Invensys India Private Limited) andVice President of Process Automation Division, has accomplished his education in premier institutes in the country and abroad. He completed his Engineering in Electrical branch from the Delhi College of Engineering and pursued Business Administration through PBM from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. He is certified in the field of Digitisation through Top Leadership Certified program on Digitisation from INSEAD @Fontainebleau campus.
 
He is a certified ISO 9001 lead auditor and trained in leading & mentoring diverse customer facing teams through registered programs like Situational Leadership Applied®; Value Based Marketing, Effective Personal Productivity®, Mastering the Complex Sale®.
 
Rajat Kishore is a member of various Automation Societies and distinguished speaker at various CEO forums such as International Society of Automation (ISA), Instruments Experts Club (IEC), Automation Expo, International Process Safety (INPSC), PowerGen and at various educational institutes like Jadavpur University, Delhi Institute of Technology to name a few.