Mining and Metals Companies Accelerate Focus on Sustainability

Schneider Electric, the leader in the digital transformation of energy management and automation, and AVEVA, a global leader in industrial software, driving digital transformation and sustainability, announced today that their combined technology offerings are supporting the sustainability initiatives of mining companies in four key pillars: energy efficiency, yield improvement, low greenhouse emission technology adoption, and new green processes.  

Global decarbonization is heavily reliant on the sustainable production of minerals and commodities. A thriving and healthy mining and metals sector is crucial for the global economy and to support the innovation of new technologies and materials needed for climate change reduction, environment protection, and the circular economy.

Schneider Electric and AVEVA are providing the tools required by organizations to make informed decisions that will empower people across the mining, minerals, and metals value chains to be more strategic in their choices based on sound advice with sustainability in mind. They are assisting operators and managers in these choices leaving these organizations well positioned to tackle some of the challenges associated with adopting sustainable practices, potentially resulting in reduced operating costs and thus providing the rare ability of appeasing all stakeholders.

According to an IDC Technology Spotlight, sponsored by AVEVA and Schneider Electric, Transitioning to Sustainable Mining, Minerals and Metals Practices, the top three market pressures driving the sustainability agendas of mining and metals organizations are:

• Need to improve brand equity
• Reduce the risk of an adverse event
• Ensure compliance with current and future regulations

“Technology has a critical role to play in supporting mining companies,” said Ben Kirkwood, Senior Research Manager, IDC Energy Insights – WW Mining. “Efforts to hit sustainability targets and gain greater visibility and control over operations will enable corporate insight and action relating to energy, water usage, and management of the operational environment. IDC’s global analysis of the revenue growth and profitability of industrial companies shows that those with a committed and ongoing sustainability-based strategy combined with a long-term, funded, digital transformation agenda considerably outperform their competitors.”

Digitalization Underpins Mining and Metals Sustainability

The IDC Technology Spotlight also reinforces the fact that as the industry continues to experience backlash from its perceived stagnant position on sustainability, platforms with added analytics are enabling improved operational efficiencies while enhancing the visibility of the changes being made.

“Although the benefits of digital transformation are crystal clear, the mining industry has thus far been limited by legacy infrastructure, data inadequacies, and piecemeal optimization programs,” said Martin Provencher, Industry Principal, Mining, Metals and Materials, AVEVA. “Increasingly virulent cyberattacks and a growing mandate for decarbonized minerals have further emphasized the importance of having high data availability and embracing a secure, cloud-first approach to visualize and contextualize enterprise-wide processes across global operations. The combination of Schneider Electric’s energy management solutions, automation systems and services, and AVEVA’s Digital Mining Transformation solutions enable our customers to transform conventional mining operations into intelligent, resilient and sustainable undertakings.”

Corporate Knights recently named Schneider Electric the world’s most sustainable company. According to the IDC Technology Spotlight, Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure platform combined with AVEVA’s Digital Mining and Metals Transformation solutions can provide the operational and organizational insight required to make sustainable operations and improved decisions through the collection and analysis of data. The partner companies aim to decarbonize the mining, minerals and metals value chains through the provision of an industrial IoT platform with technology and software elements supporting the capability for energy management and automation.