We are in year two of the UN’s Decade of Action, where governments, business and other stakeholders around the world are taking specific steps to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to address the global climate crisis. In the EU, the strategy to attain a more sustainable economy is also heavily tied to digital innovation as a key application to solve sustainability challenges.
As one of the world’s leading technology companies, with deep roots in Europe, Dassault Systèmes is tightly aligned with this strategy. We have taken a number of deliberate actions in recent months to demonstrate our commitment to embedding social and environmental sustainability into our technologies, to help companies of all sizes across the world meet the challenges of the Decade of Action and to reaffirm our our company’s purpose: to provide virtual universes to imagine sustainable innovations that harmonize product, nature and life.
Early last year, we hired our first Chief Sustainability Officer Since then, we’ve made many other clear movements that cement our commitment: we joined the Global Enabling Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), an organization focused on enabling digital sustainability, and the Ellen McArthur Foundation, which is driving systemic change and globally scaling solutions. We also became part of the Science-Based Targets Initiative, and have committed to targets to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to meet Paris Agreement goals.
The EGDC brings together technology companies who share a vision of supporting the green and digital transformation of the economy both inside and outside Europe. We are proud to work alongside other founders including Accenture, Ericsson, IBM, Microsoft, Nokia and Schneider Electric.
The news was announced during the virtual “Digital Day 2021” conference on March 19. The event affirmed the key role digital networks, technologies and applications can play in delivering environmental and climate benefits to transform the economy as a response to climate change, the depletion of natural resources, pollution and biodiversity loss.
The future of sustainability at Dassault Systèmes
Meeting these challenges is exactly what we at Dassault Systèmes have not just been talking about, but have been taking action on. Our software solutions are deeply rooted in science, and offer companies across the world – large and small, in diverse industries – to leverage virtual worlds to unleash innovation. The only limit in the virtual world is imagination! Innovators can dream up new means to reinvent approaches which, in turn, can make the economy more sustainable. Imagine a washing machine that is designed with obsolescence in mind or electric delivery trucks designed with modular parts to change as uses warrant. This can mean new materials, new products or new processes that reduce carbon footprint and increase carbon handprint; this is exactly what NIO is doing by providing their customers with emission free electric vehicles. Anyone using our tools can model and test the entire lifecycle of a product to ensure it has a place in driving a circular economy. In short: virtual worlds – powered by the 3DEXPERIENCE platform – offer a direct means to allow industry to contribute to creating a better world.
We recently released a white paper in conjunction with Accenture that confirmed the power of virtual twin technology to significantly reduce global carbon dioxide emissions. Exploring five use cases in different industries showed that virtual twins could reduce global CO2 emissions by 7.5 gigatons between now and 2030, and have $1.3 Trillion of economic value
Dassault Systèmes is committed to support companies who are already applying virtual twin technology to curb their environmental impact. And we are thrilled to now be a founding member of the EGDC to further help define and support initiatives to develop and deploy green digital solutions and create and deploy standardized impact assessment methodologies.
I invite you to learn more about EGDC, here.
Florence Verzelen serves as Executive Vice President in charge of Industry, Marketing and Sustainability at Dassault Systèmes.