Turn carbon reduction into competitive advantage
In this blog, Paul Wann, Business Director Sustainability & Decarbonisation, Emerson, discusses how life sciences companies can reduce emissions and improve sustainability through advanced automation, process control, and efficient management of utilities without compromising the quality or availability of vital therapies.
Companies throughout the life sciences industry face similar sustainability and decarbonisation challenges to other industries – the need to improve energy and resource efficiency, waste and emissions control, public perception and cost management. However, for life sciences companies, it is critical to achieve these gains without compromising the quality or availability of life-enhancing drugs and therapies.
The implementation of advanced automation technologies can have a fast, significant, and lasting effect on the control and reduction of scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions. Strategies and technologies to control and reduce consumption, emissions, and waste can be applied to both new facilities and existing assets.
Accurate measurement and control of analogue process variables, such as temperature, pH, level and flow, are fundamental to efficient production, energy management and consequently carbon emissions. Digital control and asset monitoring systems provide visibility into process and equipment condition, with solutions available that are simple and fast to deploy within existing or new plants. In this group, all actions and technologies are usually self-funding through energy cost savings alone, and the return on investment is achievable in a very short timescale.
Aligning the plant utilities with the acronym WAGES, helps keep their financial impact at the fore.
W – water: purchased water, clean and waste-water treatment systems and chemicals, CIP
A – air: supply and distribution of compressed air for pneumatic machines, instruments, controls
G – gasses: industrial gasses purchased or produced for blanketing and purging
E – energy: purchased or produced electricity, gas or co-generated heat for process and facility
S – steam: purchased or produced and distributed for process heating and sterilisation (SIP)
To efficiently manage these utilities, you need accurate measurement of production and consumption as well as effective process control and visibility of plant and process health via condition monitoring solutions.
To learn more about solutions to manage WAGES and make sustainability deliver profitability, read our whitepaper: Sustainability Drives Profitability in Life Sciences: Demands, Challenges and Automation Solutions.