How Cloud PLM Can Develop Your Business’ Sustainability

It’s easiest to see the effect of sustainable business transparency when paying attention to the Consumer Packaged Goods market. But this trend is now beginning to have a measurable effect on other markets. From Automotive to Life Sciences, consumers are demanding transparency from the businesses they choose.

Various international organisations are presently campaigning to raise awareness of the impact of non-sustainable development and manufacture. Most notably, the UN has recently undergone their transition from the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) to the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals).

It all comes down to the triple bottom line. So, let’s look at the ways in which Cloud PLM can help you to develop your business’ sustainability.

Meeting the needs of the present

Without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

PLM solutions can enhance your ability to meet environmental sustainability goals by enabling the closed-loop development of products. The aim of this process in product development is to ensure that the maximum amount of energy, resources and materials are recovered from products at the traditional end of their life cycles. These are then able to be reinvested as your business sees best.

Additionally, Simulation and Analysis services can be used to ensure that your products’ designs are optimised for longevity. The same expertise can be used to reduce waste and find potential reuses for unavoidable excess.

Implementing Cloud PLM to control compliance throughout your supply chain can also ensure that materials are responsibly sourced and sustainable.

One of the keys factors in the business case for Environmental Sustainability is the potential to reduce cost in the medium to long-term. For example, making your business more energy efficient may have an initial outlay, but the return on that investment will start to pay out immediately as you save on energy costs.

Responsiveness, Robustness and Resilience

Sharing social responsibility throughout the supply chain.

We’ve recently spoken about the importance of workplace mobility. We explained the benefits of Cloud PLM to employee productivity, engagement and empowerment. Cloud collaboration tools can be an effective way to empower your employees and share social initiatives throughout your organisation.

But Social Sustainability is also about an organisation’s responsibility to the broader society in which it operates. In essence, Social Sustainability is about ethical practices and consumer relations. Use your access to Cloud collaboration tools to engage your colleagues in community activity that welcomes feedback on your policy and procedure.

To be sustainable, a business must be profitable

But how can we make sustainable predictions about future profit?

In January 2018, the EU High-Level Expert Group published their Final Report on Sustainable Finance, recognising that, “Sustainability means making economic prosperity long-lasting, more socially inclusive and less dependent on exploitation of finite resources and the natural environment.”

Economic Sustainability has to be built on sound environmental and social foundations. It’s about ensuring the alignment of values throughout your organisation and beyond: from board members to company community and end-users.

Final Thoughts

Before finding the competitive advantage in your Sustainability strategy, employ Simulation, Analysis and Design tools to address compliance concerns. Ultimately, you should be aiming for proactive transparency as a point of pride for all stakeholders in your organisation.

Achieving a business transparency that enables such complete alignment is likely a transformational process that will last years and require initial investment. The implementation of a Cloud PLM solution will start you on that journey and could be up and running within a matter of days.