Solve The Unsolvable Sustainability

June 2, 2021June 2, 2021

Impacts: Covid-19 & Water Utilities

The COVID-19 pandemic’s lasting impact continues to strain utilities across the globe, but the Water and Sanitation Sector has had to face unique challenges. Frequent and proper handwashing is the most basic frontline defense against the spread of COVID-19, yet a quarter of the world’s population lacks access to reliable water supplies.

According to the United Nations, nearly one-third of people globally lack access to safely managed drinking water services, over half lack access to safely managed sanitation facilities and in the least-developed countries, approximately 22% of healthcare facilities lack access to improved water and sanitation services. This is the result of a combination of challenges the water sector faces, however utilizing digital technologies are at the forefront to tackling these challenges. Digital Technologies, especially artificial intelligence solutions like Maestro, will be critical in accelerating the path towards meeting the Sustainable Development Goal 6– ‘Ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by 2030’.

Revenue losses, as a result of COVID-19, have significantly slowed water utilities’ ability to make critical capital investments. Large industrial and commercial users of water slowed their usage as a result of the lockdowns. A survey by Global Water Leaders Group estimates that industrial water demand will fall by an average of 27% due to COVID-19. Crisis emergency measures, including partial suspension of bills for lower-income users and moratoriums on water cut-offs, have also led to a meaningful revenue loss for global water utilities.

While the decrease in industrial use of water may have had a positive impact on our global net zero goals, revenue losses have caused even further delay to the water sector’s infrastructure and digital upgrading. In some cases, to counteract the revenue losses, certain plants have had to delay critical infrastructure and maintenance upgrades. For example, in early May 2021, a former phosphate processing plant, Piney Point, in Palmetto, FL, was facing the potential of a catastrophic failure as a result of a leak. Piney Point has been a risk to the local environment of the Tampa Bay for at least 10 years, due to inadequate overflow procedures but in this case the leak that was identified could have lead to a catastrophic flood.

The leak was identified by personnel at least a few days after it had begun. This delay in leak identification, aided by reduced head count and maintenance expenditures as a result of COVID-19, could have been prevented with the use of Artificial Intelligence technology, such as Maestro. With the help of advanced metering, Maestro is able to detect leaks in real time and even predict potential weak spots all with the ability to automate a directive to solve the challenge, in an instant.

The intense labor requirements of the water industry made operational continuity difficult during the COVID-19 pandemic. While many employees were deemed essential workers, social distancing protocols meant only critical staff could be on site, causing major supply chain and logistic disruptions. This makes the water industry a prime candidate for increased automation and artificial intelligence. We have seen that the plants with existing enhanced metering and controls systems prior to the COVID-19 pandemic performed much better during the crisis. Artificial Intelligence’s ability to predict and automate response to occurrences such as leaks and pipe bursts make water utility providers more agile and efficient while decreasing physical interaction amongst staff.

The water sector, which is used to a consistent demand, especially for chemicals and other consumables, has experienced one of the most serious interruptions in the overall utilities sector. With the help of digital technologies, especially artificial intelligence, the water sector can work towards addressing gaps in water supply, build a more resilient long-term CAPEX structure, increase continuity and respond better in the event of future crises. Additionally, the use of digital and artificial intelligence will allow the water sector to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal-6 by the target date of 2030, possibly even in advance of it.

Elutions has extensive experience deploying Maestro technology in the water sector, in clean capture, waste water and even desalination. Acciona Qatar is just one instance of a water utility harnessing the power of Maestro to optimize operations and achieve energy savings, thusly lowering their carbon footprint. Acciona cites Maestro as a platform that is, “scalable, which will allow ACCIONA to extend the benefits of AI to all its clients in the global water industry as part of its commitment to continuous innovation and service excellence.”

To learn more about what Maestro AI and Elutions can do for your corporation, contact us.

February 19, 2021February 18, 2021

Artificial Intelligence to Achieve Net-Zero in Food and Beverage

The facts of life are such that everyone has to eat and drink in order to survive. However, in a time where consumers are much more aware and selective of the Food & Beverage providers that they purchase from, the strain is being felt by suppliers of those products. The Pandemic also has made the industry even more volatile and it has become critical to ensure the supply chain remains uninterrupted.

Now, more than ever, consumers are requiring transparency regarding ingredients and health and safety considerations of all their food and beverage purchases. Many consumers don’t care solely for what their food and drinks are made of, but also about the Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) objectives of the providers and how these corporations are executing against these objectives.

**Consumer interest in sustainable food choices increased by 23% in 2020** with less concerns regarding health and an increase in concerns around climate change, waste and recycling. ***Source: Tastewise***

With consumers and suppliers demanding higher standards from the Food & Beverage industry, it is a daunting task to remain competitive in today’s market. However, with the implementation of Artificial Intelligence solutions to address the everyday business challenges, all of these seemingly difficult to achieve goals become significantly easier. This shift in the industry to becoming more transparent applies not only to ingredients and sourcing but also through publishing implementation of measures to achieve Net-Zero objectives, while also increasing quality and safety standards. A simple search for some of the world’s largest Food & Beverage corporations will provide a view into this increased transparency, with many having entire pages or websites worth of information on their Net-Zero objectives.

“Net-Zero refers to the balance between the amount of greenhouse gas produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere.”
National Grid

These initiatives have become increasingly important in the battle against climate change, though often highly politicized, with corporations in the United Kingdom and Europe currently leading the charge through their participation in setting national goals with the regards to the Paris Agreement. However, they aren’t the only ones as large multinational, U.S. based F&B corporations such as PepsiCo and Coca-Cola have been setting the Gold Standard for the industry in their race towards Net-Zero.

In January of 2021 PepsiCo announced plans to “more than double its science-based climate goal, targeting a reduction of absolute greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across its value chain by more than 40% by 2030. In addition, the company has pledged to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040, one decade earlier than called for in the Paris Agreement.”

Within their announcement, they detailed how they would achieve this goal, and the answer lies partially in technology, with an emphasis on “implementation and upgrading of environmentally sustainable manufacturing, warehousing, transportation and distribution sites,” and a corporate goal to “maximize efficiency in supply chain, while also adopting zero- and near-zero-emission technologies.”

PepsiCo is a behemoth in the industry with a holistic view and detailed strategy for achieving their ambitious international Net-Zero goals.

While the large players like PepsiCo and Coca-Cola may be leading the way, due to their significant global stage and highly publicized plans, other Food and Beverage manufacturers have certainly been and can continue to meaningfully contribute to international net-zero goals.

The UK has been making significant progress as they have a national goal of bringing all greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050. According to the Food and Drink Federation, the UK food supply chain is responsible for around 20% of UK greenhouse gas emissions. Inenco reports that, “a rate of around 3% annual reductions by the manufacturing sector is needed to meet the ambitious 2050 net-zero targets,” further illustrating that the food and beverage sector, which is the UK’s largest manufacturing sector, accounting for 15.6% of total manufacturing GVA, needs to lead the way.

As discussed in our previous article, the food and beverage industry face unique challenges in that margins are already razor thin, recovery from negative supply chain impacts from Covid-19 and the competition of a $6111.1 billion industry is staggering. All of these mounting pressures represent an opportunity for innovation and the implementation of innovative Artificial Intelligence technologies to the value chain. Artificial Intelligence, such as Maestro, presents a ready solution to tackle all of these industry pressures swiftly through process innovation that will result in value chain optimization with a host of benefits including increased resource efficiency, reduced waste and a whole lot more.

Focused entirely on maximizing clients’ profitability and sustainable growth, Elutions’ proprietary Enterprise AI platform, Maestro, delivers unprecedented benefits with certainty and at scale through autonomous and automated AI. Maestro’s neural network self-generates algorithms and implements directives without the need for human intervention, optimizing the entire value chain, and delivering benefits that continue to grow through a virtuous circle that sustains margin growth.

Maestro AI is proven to deliver transformational benefit for the F&B manufacturing industry allowing clients to achieve Net-Zero goals with increased speed to value. To learn more about Maestro AI and Elutions, contact us.