OTTAWA – Connectivity-powered digital transformation of Canadian businesses can play a key role in Canada’s efforts to achieve its climate change commitments, according to a new report by Accenture commissioned by the Canadian Telecommunications Association (CTA) and released on Tuesday.
This new report is a follow-up to a previous Accenture report published in October 2020, titled Accelerating 5G in Canada: The Role of 5G in the Fight Against Climate Change, which predicted how 5G would make wireless networks more efficient and quantified the total carbon abatement potential.
The new Accenture report, called Canada’s next sustainability frontier: Powering digital transformation with connectivity, expands on the role modern connectivity can play in achieving Canada’s sustainability goals, focusing on the broader potential for industry reinvention through digital transformation, and illustrates with deep dives on specific sectors including oil and gas, mining and agriculture.
The report says “while Canada’s current strategies for fighting climate change, which focus on renewables and clean tech solutions, are important, other approaches, such as the modernization of Canadian industrial operations using data and technology to become more efficient, are needed to achieve Canada’s sustainability goals,” explains a CTA press release announcing the report’s publication.
As a signatory to the Paris Agreement in 2016, Canada has committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, with an interim emissions reduction target of 40% to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030. As of 2020, Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions have been reduced by only 9% from 2005 levels, according to a 2022 report from the Department of Environment and Climate Change Canada.
“Through digital transformation, business operations can become more productive, grow with less inputs or waste, and shrink energy and fuel consumption in the process,” Jefferson Wang, global networks practice lead at Accenture, said in the CTA press release. “Connectivity services, enabled by modern wireless and wireline networks, are an important foundation that make this transformation possible. Specifically, modern wireless and wireline networks provide the exponential growth in bandwidth and speed, simultaneous connections, and reliability needed to power IoT, data and AI, and cloud across industry sectors.”
Examining potential use cases in the oil and gas, mining and agriculture industries, the Accenture report illustrates how connected devices and sensors, along with technologies such as digital twins, artificial intelligence and cloud computing, can be used by businesses to operate more efficiently and safely, and in turn reduce energy and fuel consumption as well as produce less waste.
For example, the use of sensors and drones in predictive maintenance of oil rig equipment can limit unnecessary downtime and energy consumption, while digital twin technology can help optimize drilling parameters and reduce wasted fuel use by 20%, according to the report.
In the case of mining, connected technologies can help manage mining tailings ponds 25% more efficiently and with a 90% reduction in environmental compliance safety incidents, the report says.
Using sensors and drones to monitor crops, the agricultural industry could reduce its use of water and fertilizer by 20% to 40%, according to the report.
“This report illustrates the importance of telecommunications networks to Canada’s ability to achieve its sustainability goals and fight climate change,” said Robert Ghiz, president and CEO of the CTA. “By continuing to invest in communication services, our industry is creating the foundation that enables businesses to use data and digital technologies to reduce waste, achieve greater energy efficiency, and improve productivity.”
According to the press release, the report suggests achieving the productivity and sustainability benefits of digital transformation will depend on four key enablers:
- A regulatory approach that maintains incentives for Canada’s communications service providers to continue to invest in the expansion and enhancement of their wireline and wireless networks;
- Solution provider ecosystem collaboration and innovation to ensure industry verticals have the devices and software that meet their digital transformation and business requirements;
- Embracing of digital transformation by industry verticals, including investing in the tools and processes needed to share data across their businesses, and developing and hiring workers with the necessary advanced skillsets; and
- An expansion of the government’s approach to addressing environmental challenges, including extending incentives beyond clean technology investments and renewables to include incentives for digital transformation. This approach should also employ a strong emissions measurement strategy so both government and industry can focus on the specific type of digital transformations that have the largest impact.
Image borrowed from Accenture’s report, Canada’s next sustainability frontier: Powering digital transformation with connectivity.
