Blog: IoT and Edge Computing impact on Green Deal
The IoT Week 2022 has been a great chance for AIOTI to organize a session on IoT and Edge Computing impact on the Green Deal.
The session planned to identify the high-level objectives and challenges set by the EU Green Deal and key resulting Data policies; it showed IoT and Edge Computing business driven scenarios and use cases that can support these objectives and challenges in addressing key EU Green Deal and Data policies. The debate also reflected on existing Environmental Footprint Methodologies and how this fit in the initiatives such as European Digital Green Coalition and how IoT and Edge can contribute to carbon footprint reductions and measure the impact.
The speakers were: Moderator: Francesca Poggiali, GS1and AIOTI WG Digital for Green Chair, Ilias Iakovidis, DG Connect, European Commission, Laurent Schmit, Digital4 Grids, Dieter Wegener, Siemens/ZVEI, Georgios Karagiannis, Huawei and AIOTI WG Standardisation Chair, Fernando Monzón Delgado, NTT Data.
The discussion started off with the link between the Digital and the Green transformation and how without Digital transformation we can achieve little on Green transformation. IoT and Edge computing can be seen as important enablers for both Digital and Green transformation. In order to consider any IoT and Edge computing solutions for Digital and Green transformation, it is necessary to consider these three dimensions: Society, Business and Environmental impact. As an example, Edge computing solutions are not adaptable to all use cases; In particular, sustainability objectives depend on operational efficiency.
Panellists focused on the benefits of ICT (e.g., IoT and Edge computing) in minimizing carbon footprint, where the following comments were collected:
- Measurement of the benefits provided by ICT in carbon reduction in industrial sectors, is a struggle
- Important to use standardised connectivity related metrics/parameters related to carbon footprint, in order to be used by stakeholders to compare and evaluate the benefit of different connectivity solutions in reducing the carbon footprint of industrial sectors
- European Green Digital Coalition (EGDC) can help
Having such a set of experts on the Digital Product Passport (DPP) at the session, the group discussed about its importance and how to enable it. Depending on the sectors involved, IoT and Edge computing are important enabling technologies for this realisation:
- a possible implementation for technical industries, is provided by ZVEI, using the DPP4.0 concept, based on DNP4.0 (Digital Name 4.0) and AAS (Asset Administration Shell);
- for consumer goods, ISO standards play an important role to facilitate interoperability and increased transparency along the supply chain.
Our experts showed how IoT and Edge computing supports the Circular economy and ICT can help the potential to decouple through circular methods, by promoting tracking and localization of products in order to support recycling and by implementations shown in industrial IoT, industrial wastewater monitoring and in recirculating Aquiculture system.
It was important to show and have use cases and evidence on the benefits provided by ICT (IoT and Edge computing) in reducing the carbon footprint on the Energy domain, with three key targets: Decentralisation, Decarbonisation and Intelligence and digitalisation at the edge.
This session has been a great opportunity to mention that new Cloud Grid datasets are available to measure Carbon footprint 24-7. It was also relevant to report that not all PCF calculation methods are equivalent and comparable and that selection criteria are needed to help stakeholders to select the most suitable PCF methodology for each considered scenario and industry sector.
The discussion called for a new Prosumer centric Market design. An important path to realise carbon reduction is to increase awareness and information for the citizens to reduce energy and carbon footprint and at the same time increase the incentives for citizen to realize this reduction.