From boosting productivity to grappling with Scope 3 emissions calculations, embracing the Internet of Things is essential to moving the needle.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a network of physical devices, vehicles, appliances and other objects equipped with sensors, connectivity and software to enable them to gather and exchange data.
While not a new concept, innovations around communications technology – such as 5G and AI – are expanding the possibilities, Engineers Australia CEO Romily Madew AO FTSE HonFIEAust EngExec said at IoT Impact 2024.
“These technologies can help us overcome challenges in the future, as well as assist in delivering on the government’s focus areas such as Future Made in Australia and AUKUS,” she said.
“[But] there needs to be better uptake of innovation and we need to develop new ways of working to boost productivity.”
Here are three Australian companies that cater to very different sectors and stakeholders are using data smartly to reduce costs, enhance productivity and cut emissions.
Revitalising infrastructure and construction
According to Infrastructure Australia’s 2023 Market Capacity report, the five-year major public infrastructure pipeline is approximately $230 billion, with 80 per cent of the investment concentrated on the eastern coast of Australia.
“The market hasn’t been able to cope with the level of investment, particularly in the concentration of activity in the eastern states and the pressure of global supply chains,” Madew said. “Many projects have not been delivered on time and on budget.”
Unlocking the potential of digital is critical to improve innovation and productivity in sectors such as infrastructure, construction and mining.
Advancements in 5G further enhance IoT technologies due to their support for a large number of connected, low-power devices – which can be deployed in many different applications.
“This means that devices which talk to each other over a network like sensors are better supported,” Madew said.
One example is the use of plate sensing systems in the mining industry. Plates act as a protective shield for a range of machinery and equipment, but plate maintenance is a major operating cost for all global mining companies.
To reduce overheads and improve efficiency, Davies Wear Plate Systems developed WearSense – a wear sensing system that captures live measurement data on wear plates, such as the level of wear, temperature and vibration.
“It replaces manual procedures for measuring wear plate degeneration and degradation, enabling real-time condition-based management,” Madew said.
Rather than sending personnel to inspect equipment – or waiting until there’s an issue – this data equips mining companies with real-time information about what needs to be replaced, and when.
“It reduces the amount of wear plates required in stock and it leads to improved productivity, safety and profitability,” she explained.
Quantifying emissions for large agriculture portfolios
From 1 January 2025, Australian legislation will require large enterprises to both manage and disclose their climate exposures.
For institutions such as banks that have large agricultural portfolios, the scale of the problem posed by this regulation is “huge”.
Within their agricultural portfolios alone, many banks will have tens of thousands of agricultural customers for whom they need to both manage and disclose the emissions down to an individual customer level, according to John Mottram, co-founder of WollemAI.
“Agriculture is a particularly complex industry to measure the emissions and the physical risk for, given the geographic scale, the changing nature of the assets – such as wheat, cattle or land – and the changing seasons,” Mottram said at the same IoT event.
“There’s a real need for reporting approaches and consistent methodologies for calculating climate emissions and physical risk.”
To ease the pressure on institutions with large portfolios, WollemAI developed a machine learning based climate reporting tool, including farming customers, assets, supply chain or public land.
“The platform’s calculation engine covers all climate risks, defined as emissions, physical risks and land use change,” he said. “It also has a forecasting capability to forecast emissions from portfolios, along with an ability to stress test what happens under future climate scenarios to emissions within the portfolio.”
WollemAI’s machine learning based tool only requires a small amount of portfolio locating data from customers, from which they can provide highly granular calculations for the portfolios down to asset level.
“The reporting provides a comprehensive set of measurements for portfolios of 10,000 plus down to a farm level, a comprehensive set of measurements of the positive emissions, the negative side of emissions including carbon removals, a measurement of the land use change, and carbon stock of the land,” he said.
The key way data is used by WollemAI is as an input to its calculations engine, which is constantly fed public and private data sets. This helps to generate in-depth understanding of emissions and physical risks at different locations, agricultural production systems, and under different climatic conditions.
“Good data and good technology results in a large-scale capability for sustainability and climate measurement, which enables companies and individuals to affect change and manage resilience,” Mottram added.
Aggregating and analysing financial data
With the clock ticking until the mandatory climate finance-related climate disclosure legislation kicks in, asset owners will need access to data in asset classes of commercial real estate, private equity infrastructure and private debt.
These financial institutions will need to understand at a portfolio level what the risk is and where the risks are coming from, then be able to de-risk the public statements made as an institutional asset, according to Carl Prins, CEO of PathZero, an emissions data network for private markets.
To that end, PathZero’s navigator tool aggregates, analyses and reports data stored in the network library, which is a third party data set with a protocol that governs data going in and out.
“We don’t own or sell the data – we enable the transfer of information between parties,” he said.
A second tool, PathZero Clarity, provides more details on the emissions of a particular asset.
“You may run a high-level analysis and identify that a particular company has a lot of mobile combustion because they have a fleet,” Prins said. “That drives the informed question that can go to that company, such as ‘Can you tell us more about your fleet?’”
Collaboration is key to unlocking data and the transition to net zero, whether that be driving net zero or simply managing the risks of moving to a low-carbon economy in a portfolio.
“There is a need to de-risk public statements as an institution and ensure that decisions about decarbonisation and transition risk management are … data-driven and can be backed up.”
The upcoming Climate Smart Engineering Conference 2024 (CSE24) brings together some of the profession’s best thought leaders to navigate the clean energy transition.