4 eco-design principles, LCA, virtual twins and 3DEXPERIENCE can do the trick.
PLM developers have a strong belief that engineers, product developers and innovators will play a key role on the path to a more sustainable society. “They [all] can and will deliver the technologies needed to contribute to this,” says Florence Verzelen, executive vice president of Industry, Marketing and Sustainability at Dassault Systèmes. She adds that throughout history technology and innovative engineering have always characterized human progress.
“Sustainability is at the core of our purpose to harmonize product, nature and life,” she says.
This optimism is supported by several things. But the strongest evidence might be that according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, an international charity focusing on the circular economy, 80 percent of a product’s environmental footprint is determined by the design. This means that sustainable product development is an important prerequisite in establishing a circular economy.
The organization writes on its website: “Design is at the heart of the circular economy. Everything around us is designed, from the food we eat to the chairs we sit on. Decisions made at the design phase influence how long something lasts, what it is made of, if it can be repaired and what happens to it at the end of life.”
Verzelen agrees and is enthusiastic about the opportunities that today’s digital platforms, such as 3DEXPERIENCE, offer in this context. However, she also feels frustration over how slow things can move. She says, “There is a growing urgency to change our ways of production and consumption. We need to rethink everything. Using technology to solve problems more sustainably is an amazing opportunity that can be realized with the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.”
Dassault Systèmes has taken many steps to help engineers create sustainable industrial solutions. And Verzelen sees this as one of the biggest driving forces to help global companies in this transformation.
Accelerating Sustainability with 4 Eco-Design Principles
“At Dassault Systèmes, sustainability is at the core of our purpose to harmonize product, nature and life,” says Verzelen. “In line with the Paris Agreement and our recent COP27 Action Climate Declaration and ‘All In’ statement, we have a clear strategy towards carbon neutrality by 2040 and we plan on achieving two-thirds of our new revenues through sustainable solutions by 2025. By serving more than 300,000 clients worldwide, Dassault stands as a unique partner to enable the sustainable transformation of the 11 industries we serve.”
This sentiment is confirmed by Dassault Systèmes’ CEO and president, Bernard Charles. In a recent statement commenting on the company’s financial report, he said that from a commercial standpoint, proactive companies are “increasingly targeting platforms and solutions that facilitate sustainable product development and circular capabilities, which can simultaneously meet the market’s demands for experiences.”
Verzelen admits that a lot of work towards sustainability has already happened, but a lot remains. She says, “Growing environmental concerns and sustainability requirements have resulted in progress towards net-zero solutions. Things are underway; however, more can be done, faster. To accelerate sustainable innovation, companies can start by implementing eco-design principles.”
The four eco-design principles she refers to are:
- Using fewer resources during the manufacturing process,
- Producing less pollution and waste,
- Reducing the environmental impacts of distributing products, and
- Ensuring that products use fewer resources when they are used by end customers.
It’s not about reaching zero-levels over night, but to advance step by step on the path towards sustainability.
The Cost of Sustainable Innovation Intelligence
Verzelen says, “When companies integrate eco-design into their product and service development, they can weave sustainability into the entire value network and drive a circular economy.” This is true, but how can it be done—and are companies doing the work?
According to the Financial Times report “MORE PRAISED THAN PRACTISED – Sustainable innovation needs more businesses on board,” many companies struggle to act. The report also notes that many executives believe that these improvements come with high costs and that they already have many of the gains.
According to the report, “Sixty-five percent of respondents say that the size of the environmental and social footprint associated with their products already represents a competitive advantage; just 16 per cent disagree. Meanwhile, 61 percent say that increased development of sustainable products and services would require substantial business-model change.”
So, if cost is a barrier, can Dassault Systèmes help? Verzelen claims they can.
The Role of PLM, Virtual Twins and LCA in Sustainable Design
Verzelen says, “A virtual twin with embedded lifecycle assessment capabilities can almost instantly calculate the impact on sustainability, cost, time to market and a host of other critical measures, making every employee — not just a company’s sustainability team — a valuable actor in the sustainability revolution.”
Integrated LCA is a key component in how the 3DEXPERIENCE is developed, so it can provide the tools companies need to meet sustainability demands. For instance, a lot of the sustainability focus is on the world’s vehicle fleet and its transition to electric operation. LCA can help here, but so can other tools in the 3DEXPERIENCE such as its battery development package, which can produce a virtual twin of the real-world battery. Then this can all be added to the overall PLM systems within the 3DEXPERIENCE.
This is an important improvement as LCA can, in addition to assessing environmental impact, also describe the resource flows of the design. So, by embedding an LCA solution into the 3DEXPERIENCE’s PLM and virtual twin capabilities, Verzelen claims that it will be possible for companies to minimize the environmental impact of their products, materials and processes and help develop a circular economy.
For Dassault Systèmes, LCA is a cornerstone in sustainable development. The logic is crystal clear: 3DEXPERIENCE can map and develop PLM and virtual twin systems. These manage each product’s life cycle from cradle to grave. By adding tools that can assess the societal impact and sustainability of those systems, sooner or later we will become more sustainable.
How LCA Leads Us to Sustainable Designs
How does LCA cultivate sustainable design? Verzelen argues that it quantifies the environmental impact of end-to-end business products and services—from sourcing raw materials to delivering, and eventually scrapping, finished goods. To do this, LCA relies on company data from thousands of sources. By its very nature, PLM has already contained, collated and organized much of that information. LCA can then use that information to answer questions such as:
- Which product designs and material selections are the most sustainable ones?
- Which processes have the lowest consumption of land and water resources?
- Which manufacturing and supplier strategy has the best carbon footprint?
Conventional LCA measures the impact of what has already been done and stands apart from day-to-day business activities. But with advanced digitalization and PLM, LCA can do all of this before anything is ever manufactured.
Corporate data isn’t enough to produce an LCA; the tool also needs environmental databases to assess material choices, regulation adherence and optimal environmental designs. Here Dassault Systèmes has partnered with Ecoinvent, an environmental database provider with a diverse repository of high-quality lifecycle information. The Ecoinvent database contains over 19,000 life cycle inventory datasets across the globe and all industrial sectors.
Bottom line is that when engineers are equipped with PLM and LCA data, “companies are better poised to innovate towards circular product lifecycles, gain a competitive edge and win the climate fight,” says Verzelen.
Partnership With a Net Zero Player
But there’s more: Dassault Systèmes recently announced a partnership with its customer Envision Digital. The aim of the partnership is to develop solutions to optimize the performance of sustainable energy systems. Envision Digital is a prominent net zero player. Its digital EnOS platform currently handles more than 200 million IoT objects and 560 GigaWatts of electricity.
The companies are assessing how the interaction of their proprietary technologies can enable digital twin experiences for design, manufacturing and operations.
An Exciting Vision
Verzelen, envisions a situation where connected platforms will drive efficiency across all industries. She further claims that interaction between Dassault Systèmes’ proprietary technologies enable virtual twin experiences. These twins can integrate data across facility operations, engineering and manufacturing via the Industrial IoT and facility data performance management. It’s a huge scope and the ambitions are high. What the outcome might be remains to be seen, but Verzelen’s vision is exciting.
