Sustainability in your go-to-market strategy:
A burden or untapped advantage?
The data story behind sustainability
Together, digital maturity and connected data empower organizations to embed sustainability into engineering, manufacturing and supply chains
Sustainability has emerged as a fundamental strategic imperative for modern organizations. In today's business landscape, stakeholders assess companies not only by the quality of their products but also by the sustainability of their processes. While awareness and commitment to sustainable practices have increased, many enterprises continue to face obstacles when it comes to delivering measurable, tangible outcomes.
Addressing these challenges requires a shift toward a digital-first operating model. By systematically capturing, integrating, and analysing data across the value chain, organizations may turn sustainability objectives into practical actions. This method is a key aspect of digital maturity and facilitates continuous improvement, transparency, and accountability.
Wilko Overeem
Business Director Business Analytics, 9altitudes
"Without combining data efficiently, sustainability teams need to spend most of their valuable time in finding the right data."
Wilko Overeem - Business Director Business Analytics
Sustainability as a data-driven journey
At 9altitudes, we believe the story of sustainability is first and foremost a data story. The journey starts already during engineering, where digital twins and design tools allow organizations to simulate environmental impact before a product reaches production. By embedding sustainability KPIs into product design—materials, energy consumption, and lifecycle impact—companies can make informed decisions early in the process. Circularity by design is essential to reach net-zero commitments for organizations, and can recover 60 – 95% of its footprint.
As designs transition into manufacturing, real-time operational technology (OT) data becomes indispensable. Monitoring metrics such as energy usage, water consumption, and carbon emissions is necessary for fulfilling requirements like the Digital Product Passport, which will soon be mandatory for numerous product categories. Information about resource use, waste generation, equipment efficiency, downtime, and quality parameters—not only commonly measured values but also crucial for sustainability—can lead to optimized processes that deliver higher output with lower emissions and waste, thereby enhancing overall sustainability.
Extending sustainability across the value chain
However, collecting data exclusively from design and manufacturing phases is insufficient. Sustainability extends far beyond the factory floor. Procurement and supply chain processes hold the key to understanding scope 3 emissions, which often represent the largest portion of a company’s environmental footprint. Data sharing throughout the supply chain is increasingly important for compliance with regulations such as CSRD and CSDDD, and for facilitating the creation of Digital Product Passports. It is advisable to begin gathering supplier emission profiles, product composition details, material sourcing locations, and transportation emissions within the ERP system, all of which inform process analyses and carbon footprint improvements.
Once data is captured as part of the transactional processes in the company, it is time to combine data effectively into a data platform. Platforms like Microsoft Fabric unify disparate datasets, like engineering simulations, real-time shop floor data, ERP transactional data, allowing advanced analytical models and AI predictions.
Without combining data efficiently, sustainability teams need to spend most of their valuable time in finding the right data. With help of Microsoft Fabric, sustainability teams can now spend their time on quickly uncovering inefficiencies, track KPIs and make proactive decisions. It is now time to invest in a future proof data platform. And, a data quality assessment can help you in getting insights into the gaps you might currently have in your data availability and quality.
Digital transformation as the foundation for sustainable impact
9altitudes supports organizations in implementing digital threads using platforms from Microsoft, PTC and Tulip, assisting clients in achieving full digital transformation necessary for regulatory compliance, customer satisfaction, and long-term economic viability. Sustainability is more than regulatory adherence; it represents a responsible business practice that reduces environmental impact and fosters continuous performance improvement while ensuring economic sustainability. In the narrative of sustainability, digitization and data not only document processes—they are integral to driving advancement.
Sustainability insights survey
The survey provided insights into the pressures organizations face to supply sustainability data. The results indicate that more than 75% either feel this pressure or anticipate experiencing it in the future. Comparing this with the level of preparation and support from digital business applications, the data suggests that many companies are not yet prepared or do not collect data in a structured manner using such tools. Given these findings, organizations may need to begin focusing on developing data capturing, collection, and reporting practices related to sustainability.