Industry pathways to net zero – Decarbonisation in manufacturing

Manufacturing accounts for around a third of total global CO2 emissions. In order to reach net zero by 2050, the sector needs to reduce emissions by 50% by 2030. While many factors will contribute to driving that reduction, we believe the impact of mobile and digital technology through the expansion of smart factories is significant, at 1.4 gigatonnes (or 16% of the total sector reduction) over the 10 years from 2020 to 2030.

The premise of industrial digitisation is that data analytics can be used to automate tracking, monitoring and maintenance processes that would otherwise require manual labour. The feed through to carbon emissions reductions comes via productivity gains from automation, meaning less energy is required for a given level of annual output. In this industry-specific case study, we explore how the technology can aid decarbonisation and the deployment models for enterprise customers and their supply chain partners.

This research follows on from our main report "Industry pathways to net zero: mobile and digital technology in support of industry decarbonisation", which outlines a high-level quantification of decarbonisation and associated strategies for four key industries that account for 80% of global emissions – manufacturing, power and energy, transport, and buildings.