Despite uncertainty as regulations change across the globe, sustainability transparency will continue to be a key focus for many businesses throughout 2025 – especially large enterprises to whom the EU's CSRD will still apply. A significant barrier to this is silos in ESG and sustainability initiatives: many high-level strategies have historically excluded operations teams and had little impact on their day-to-day activities.
Now, operations teams’ involvement with sustainability is evolving. According to research by Verdantix, over one-third of industrial decision-makers (36%) view reconfiguring plant operations, maintenance and metrics to align with ESG and sustainability frameworks as a ‘number 1’ or ‘high priority’ for 2025.
As organizations undergo this reconfiguration, industry and sustainability leaders alike need to be aware of two key trends:
- Investment in and adoption of decarbonization technologies such as carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS); hydrogen electrolysers; and thermal batteries. Many of these technologies are still in the launch phase and will need significant investment before they become widely commercially available. In the meantime, firms will continue to reduce energy consumption and emissions through improving operational efficiency. An example of this is tyre manufacturer Michelin, which adopted AVEVA PI System to enable operators to monitor and optimize energy consumption, and to standardize and share best practices across plants, leading to a 3-16% reduction in energy use.
- Reshoring and nearshoring initiatives sparked by lingering supply chain disruptions and tariff wars – as well as electrification and AI megatrends – will drive an uptick in greenfield projects. To attract investment, these developments may seek to align with ESG and sustainability frameworks such as the EU Taxonomy, which provides a standardized classification system aiming to help investors identify the activities that are best aligned with the EU’s environmental goals. Digital twins – such as those offered by AVEVA, Hexagon, Kongsberg and Siemens – will be pivotal to ensure Taxonomy alignment, simulating different design options, processes and energy consumption scenarios. The technology also allows users to optimize operations according to a diverse range of constraints, such as lower energy consumption, carbon emissions and waste. Once operational, digital twins can continue monitoring environmental metrics and identify improvement areas as assets age.
Despite backslides and reversals, ESG and sustainability regulations will continue to evolve and net zero progress will remain a pivotal business metric. In order to stay resilient and competitive, industrial firms must engage both sustainability and operations stakeholders to adopt a data-driven and process-centric approach to identify opportunities to improve their existing operations and future-proof their investments.
