News & Blog

Sustainability efforts are here to stay. If you’re not already taking steps to make your company more sustainable, then you’ll probably soon have to: UK mandatory climate disclosures will be introduced for many businesses in the near future.

But with disclosures comes reporting, data collection, analysis, and actionable goals. Recycling the yoghurt pots from the office fridge isn’t going to save the world on its own, but please don’t stop doing it.

So, if you’re a UK business, how can data warehousing, analytics, reporting, and a suite of other BI tools help you?

Well, let’s consider a hypothetical company to see how it would benefit from BI.

A sustainability story

Let’s picture a small shipping company specialising in shipping and warehousing products for e-commerce. It has a small number of employees made up of warehouse and office staff, a large warehouse to deal with its orders, and it does little to nothing in terms of sustainability.

At the end of a shift, warehouse and office workers manually turn off lights as they leave. Paying the energy bills is done by the office manager, who also takes care of the petrol for the delivery drivers. A few employees maintain a spreadsheet that tracks some of the expenses, but updating it is often rushed at the end of each month. By the time the data has been uploaded, it’s time to move on to another task and nothing actionable ever comes out of it. Office staff are mostly working in the cloud, using the fulfilment and CRM platforms to keep orders going to the warehouse and customers happy.

Faced with increasing energy bills and oncoming mandatory climate disclosures, the company knew that it needed to change course, fast.

Three acts, three improvements

This predicament is not uncommon. But there are a few actions that would improve its sustainability efforts, like:

1) Monitoring cloud usage emissions

2) Monitoring energy consumption

3) Monitoring drivers’ routes

Act 1: Cloud use emissions

All of the company’s data, files, and applications are in the cloud, and working in the cloud uses a lot of energy. It uses energy at the company’s end – running computers etc. – and at the cloud provider’s end – powering and cooling data centres and server farms. Naturally, using more or less cloud computing uses more or less energy. And, as you’d expect, using lots of energy means a lot of emissions.

But, BI tools like the Power BI Emissions Impact Dashboard can help track the energy and emissions organisations use within the cloud. It can also be used for quickly pulling data and reporting.

Act 2: Energy monitoring

Not collecting data on energy usage in warehouses is bad practice. But, not having motion-detecting lights is living in denial. The amount of power, and thereby emissions and money wasted is criminal.

By collecting energy use data, alongside tariff data, and updating its lighting system, a business could save a lot. If all of that data is warehoused and made accessible to the decision makers, then the average monthly bills would likely plummet. Using a BI tool that tracks this would also help start reporting on indirect emissions from energy use.

Act 3: Driving emissions

Emissions from driving are directly in the control of the wider organisation, which means they fall under ‘scope 1’ emissions. If a business also pays for their petrol and vehicle maintenance, any improvement would save both money and emissions.

BI solutions that are designed to collect route data, weather data, and driving behaviour can make big changes in how much petrol is used. For example, consider shipping a lorry’s worth of goods from Warsaw to Glasgow. Using the data gathered from previous journeys can help inform driving behaviours, routes, and timings. Integrating weather data via an API can also help build a fuller picture that can avoid rerouting and improve efficiency. Importantly, for shipping, there will be a vast amount of scope 1 emissions to account for, so easily tracking and reporting them is key too.

The curtain call

Sustainability efforts and reporting don’t mean the end of competitiveness and edge. In fact, they mean the end of wasted money, time, and resources. When done properly with a purpose-made BI solution, you’ll bring the curtain down on wasteful practices and welcome the greener changes to your company.

If you’re in need of a sustainability solution for your company, get in touch and tell us your sustainability story. You can read more about BI and sustainability here.