Alina Oprea • 30 March, 2023 at 5:41 PM
Companies that engage in sustainable practices record higher financial performance, according to the EY 2022 "Sustainable Value Study". They have 2.4 times more chances to increase their financial return, but also other benefits in staff recruitment and retention, brand image, and attracting new customers. Adopting a sustainable behavior also becomes a legal obligation, at the EU level. The European Parliament adopted, this month, a normative act that obliges the member states to reduce their CO2 emissions by up to 40%, by 2030. The regulations will also be transposed into national legislation, and non-compliance will attract sanctions. Modern technologies can help companies become sustainable, develop sustainably, and be balanced.
"Sustainability is no longer just a trend in business, as it was seen a few years ago, but has become a necessity. The pandemic, the border war, and the energy crisis have accelerated this process. When we talk about sustainability in industry, retail, office, or campus there are measures specific to each field, but we also have common denominators. One of the most important sustainability policies, valid for any business and any particular situation, concerns the reduction of energy consumption. In addition to budget savings, energy efficiency shows the company's concern for the environment. The EY study demonstrated that this responsible attitude is positively reflected in public perception and, respectively, in the evolution of sales. The sure steps towards a sustainable company start with identifying the internal processes that can be automated or made more efficient with the help of technology. Subsequently, the control and monitoring of consumption are carried out, so that forecasting plays an important role, especially in scaling situations. All these steps can be easily completed with IoT (Internet of Things) technological solutions, such as the QLEAP ENEF energy management system", explained Mihai Suchar, general manager of Quartz Matrix, the company that launched the QLEAP solution, through which companies they can reduce their energy consumption, respectively costs, by up to 11%.
Another example is checking the condition of the equipment, which, traditionally, was carried out either by employees or by a specialized partner, periodically. Their proper functioning is essential for a company's productivity. By implementing the energy efficiency system, defective equipment is quickly identified, which consumes three times more energy compared to those operating in optimal parameters.
By using AI and Machine Learning, the ENEF solution identifies new opportunities for saving and conserving energy, creates trends, and provides forecasts of future resource requirements.
"The QLEAP platform helps turn global sustainable goals into action, in line with energy efficiency and management legislation. In numbers, the system takes information from over 10,000 sources to generate annual energy savings of 3.65% and average annual cost savings of almost 11%. The tons of reduced CO2 emissions are over 700,000. In other words, more than 31 million trees were saved. The platform is aimed at companies that want to reduce their energy consumption in the context of the energy crisis and the acceleration of energy prices. QLEAP is dedicated to industrial and non-industrial consumers, but also to companies that want to become more sustainable and responsible with regard to protecting the environment, by reducing CO2 emissions. For better financial performance and long-term competitive advantage, it is necessary to adopt sustainability practices as an ethical, strategic, and profitable choice for companies", concluded Mihai Suchar, Quartz Matrix general manager.
In the third quarter of 2022, greenhouse gas emissions of the EU economy totaled 854 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, an increase of 2% compared to the same quarter in 2021. The economic sectors responsible for the most emissions of greenhouse gases were Production (23%), Electricity, and gas supply (21%).