The following article comes from one of our DCW 2023 exhibitors, Accenture.

In brief

  • Virtual twins can drive sustainability and the circular economy while helping companies reduce their costs, resource use and carbon footprint.
  • Accenture and Dassault Systèmes partnered to think on how virtual twins can accelerate the sustainable transformation to a more circular economy.
  • They found that across 5 use cases virtual twins can unlock $1.3 trillion in economic value and 7.5 Gt CO2e emissions reductions between now and 2030.

Moving to a more circular economy

The benefits of virtual twins are numerous. From increasing speed-to-market to minimising the risk associated with complex innovations and projects, these technologies can help companies across industries reduce costs and improve operations.

Virtual twins help by allowing users to design, test and model disruptive new sustainable products and processes in record time, all virtually, significantly decreasing time to market and risk. Because of this, they have already been used in the development of 85 percent of the world’s electric vehicles and have powered breakthrough sustainability pilots such as electric furnaces, the world’s first solar airplane and new biomaterials.

But most importantly perhaps, virtual twins also significantly support the transition to a more circular economy—where parts and products are designed in a way which makes for easy reuse and repurposing and eliminates waste from the lifecycle. This can help us achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals in the Decade to Deliver—an ever critical step to addressing the climate crisis.

Our research findings indicate that if industries, governments, and societies were to implement virtual twins, we could unlock additional benefits of USD $1.3 trillion of economic value and 7.5 Gt CO2e emissions reductions between now and 2030.

Helping industries innovate

Virtual twins can help many different industries innovate operations and ultimately reinvent core business. Within our research, we looked across five key industries and use cases to demonstrate the potential of virtual twins:

  1. Construction and Cities
  2. Consumer Packaged Goods
  3. Transportation and Mobility
  4. Life Sciences
  5. Electrical and Electronics

Delivering value and sustainability

If introduced at scale, virtual twins can deliver $1.3 trillion of economic value and 7.5 Gt CO2e emissions reductions between now and 2030 across these five use cases alone. However, it is clear that adoption has been limited to date, and we must work to accelerate the adoption of these technologies across industries.

Through our analysis, we have shown the potential for virtual twins to help us achieve our Global Goals, and deliver clear business value, and we hope we can inspire the next wave of leadership to think about these combined benefits and accelerate our progress.

Construction and Cities

The construction industry could see a $288 billion reduction in building operating costs through reductions in energy consumption, maintenance, planning and commissioning costs. This is made possible using proven and commercially available virtual twin technologies.

The construction industry is estimated to be worth $8 Trillion worldwide, or 10% of global GDP, and is one of the largest sectors globally1. Additionally, it is a key source of demand for materials and resources, which creates significant environmental strain and reliance2. From a sustainability perspective, commercial and residential buildings currently use about 40% of global energy demand (60% of the world’s electricity), account for 25% of our global water usage, and are responsible for approximately a third of global GHG emissions3. And these demands are only set to increase. Current estimates suggest that by 2030, there will be 706 cities with a least 1 Million inhabitants—up nearly 30% from 20184. Despite these challenges, spatial concentration of people and economic activities has potential upsides, as it facilitates at-scale deployment of solutions. For example, urban buildings offer significant potential for achieving substantial GHG emission reductions globally. Energy consumption in buildings can be reduced by 30 – 80% using proven and commercially available virtual twin technologies, often within the broader framework of smart cities.

Perspectives from industry leaders and the way forward

To identify how the adoption of virtual twin technologies can increase to drive greater sustainability benefits and move towards systemic transformation and circular economies, we spoke with business leaders and experts from our selected in-scope industries. These discussions, along with our research and analyses, informed five key recommendations for how we can better harness the potential of virtual twin technologies.

  1. Tie together technology and sustainability agenda
  2. Improve understanding
  3. Focus on disruptive, systems-change use cases
  4. Deploy responsibly
  5. Rally ecosystem support

In conclusion

This study aims to demonstrate and frame the disruptive potential of virtual twin technologies. We have looked at a variety of industries and use cases to demonstrate the breadth and potential of the technology and illustrate how it can be used throughout product life cycles to drive significant end-to-end benefits.

Through the five industries studied, virtual twins can deliver combined incremental benefits of USD $1.3 trillion of economic value and 7.5 Gt CO2e emissions reductions between now and 2030. In addition to these sizeable benefits, virtual twins also have the potential to create more disruptive innovation and designs, enable new service development, reduce regulatory and HSE risk and enable cross functional collaboration and co-working.

These benefits will not only improve business competitiveness but will also drive systemic progress towards a more circular and significantly less carbon intensive economic system and help us achieve our Global Goals to 2030, which is a critical step in the Decade to Deliver.

To support this transformation at the speed and scale we need, we must drive a greater understanding of the technology use cases and benefits and look to better measure combined business and sustainability ROI as part of the business case. We hope that this report is a first step on that journey, showcasing the potential for disruptive innovation, and can inspire the next wave of leadership to think about the combined benefits of technology and sustainability.

Sources:

  1.  UNEP, n.d. Energy Efficiency For Buildings. [online] Available at: <https://www.euenergycentre.org/images/unep%20info%20sheet%20-%20ee%20buildings.pdf>.
  2.  OECD. 2018. Raw Materials Use To Double By 2060 With Severe Environmental Consequences – OECD. [online] Available at: <https://www.oecd.org/environment/raw-materials-use-to-double-by-2060- with-severe-environmental-consequences.htm>.
  3. UNEP, n.d. Energy Efficiency For Buildings. [online] Available at: <https://www.euenergycentre.org/images/unep%20info%20sheet%20-%20ee%20buildings.pdf>.
  4. UN, 2018. The World’s Cities In 2018. [online] Available at: <https:// www.un.org/en/events/citiesday/assets/pdf/the_worlds_cities_in_2018_data_booklet.pdf>

Link to full report: https://www.accenture.com/content/dam/accenture/final/a-com-migration/r3-3/pdf/pdf-147/accenture-virtual-twin-and-sustainability.pdf#zoom=40

Find Accenture UK on stand D275