Abstract Description: There are two common challenges associated with environmental data: it tends to be some of the most isolated data of an organization, and it is primarily oriented towards past events. While the operations, inventory, supply chain, and financial data of an organization are generally tightly integrated, environmental and sustainability data are often siloed into a single department or even a single laptop’s hard drive. Because of this, both the upstream data required for emissions calculations and the downstream generated emissions data do not flow through the organization.
Emission calculations are generally quantified months or years after the emissions have been generated. At best, this only provides a static snapshot of past emissions. From a compliance standpoint, we only know if we had an exceedance after it has occurred. From a sustainability and emissions reductions standpoint, we only know if we happen to have met our goals.
A digital twin is a virtual representation of a system or process that is created using real-time, simulation, or modeling data. The application of environmental digital twins addresses the issues outlined above by first building the appropriate data pipelines that integrate operations and instrumentation data with emission factors in real-time, and then makes that data readily accessible through informative alerting, metrics, visualizations, and dashboards. With the implementations of digital twins, organizations can quantify and visualize what emissions are being generated by their assets in real-time. Digital twins can also be utilized to produce accurate projections for whether they will be in compliance or meet sustainability goals based on historical patterns, current trends, and what-if scenarios.
This presentation will provide a comprehensive overview of how digital twins can be used for environmental and emissions applications. It will include examples of how digital twins have been implemented by organizations to provide real-time actionable insight into their emissions for improved sustainability and compliance performance.
