IoT is Driving Sustainable Battery Surge

Dorian Maillard, Vice President at DAI Magister, explains the challenges and opportunities facing the growing market in efficient, eco-friendly power solutions.

In the expansive landscape of the Internet of Things (IoT), the quest for sustainable power solutions has emerged as a pivotal challenge. With the IoT market forecasted to surpass US$1.6 trillion by 2025, the demand for efficient power solutions has become increasingly pressing. However, the reliance on traditional batteries poses significant environmental and logistical hurdles, driving the imperative for sustainable alternatives.

The IoT market’s exponential growth, fuelled by advancements in connectivity, sensor technologies and data analytics, underscores the critical importance of sustainable power solutions. With over 75 billion connected devices projected to be in operation within the next decade, the reliance on conventional batteries is unsustainable in the long run. The proliferation of IoT devices, ranging from smart home gadgets to industrial sensors, has led to an unprecedented surge in battery consumption. The sheer number of batteries being utilised not only presents challenges in terms of resource depletion but also raises concerns about the environmental impact of battery disposal.

Rising demand for alternatives

Certain sectors within the IoT industry stand out as particularly in need of alternative battery solutions. For instance, industries such as healthcare, where continuous monitoring devices are extensively used, require reliable and long-lasting power sources to ensure uninterrupted operation. Moreover, in industrial settings, where sensors and monitoring devices are deployed in harsh environments and remote locations, sustainable battery alternatives can reduce maintenance costs and enhance operational efficiency. Additionally, in the realm of smart agriculture, where IoT devices are employed for precision farming and environmental monitoring, sustainable power solutions are essential to enable data-driven decision-making and optimise resource utilisation.

Despite efforts to recycle batteries, the process remains inefficient and often results in hazardous waste. Improper disposal of batteries can lead to soil and water contamination, posing risks to ecosystems and human health. In addition, the reliance on finite and environmentally damaging resources, such as lithium and cobalt, further exacerbates the sustainability issue. As the global demand for batteries continues to escalate, concerns over resource depletion, environmental degradation and geopolitical tensions surrounding resource extraction intensify.

The transition to sustainable battery alternatives is not only a matter of environmental responsibility but also a strategic imperative for ensuring the long-term viability of IoT deployments. By reducing reliance on conventional batteries, organisations can mitigate environmental risks, enhance operational efficiency, and contribute

Net Zero is Bringing Business Back to Britain

Graham Upton, Chief Architect – Intelligent Industry, Capgemini UK, explains how climate goals are driving UK firms to reindustrialise.

The UK has recently been accused of watering down its net zero ambitions, with a report from the Climate Change Committee suggesting that the UK is on course to miss meeting the pledges it made at COP28.

Despite this, new data indicates UK businesses are taking decarbonisation efforts seriously, increasingly bringing their manufacturing back home to shorten supply chains and cut emissions. According to a new report by the Capgemini Research Institute, UK organisations are investing £338.5 billion into reindustrialisation over the next three years, an increase of £57.8 billion on the previous three years.

Sustainability is a driver of reindustrialisation

Reindustrialisation, or the act of moving manufacturing operations closer to home, is emerging as a key strategy to decrease a company’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Responsible for 54% of the world’s energy consumption, manufacturing has a massive carbon footprint, and is a key concern for any business considering how they can balance economic growth with a responsibility to work towards net zero.

Ensuring that a business has a strong ESG strategy adherence is also attractive to investors. Companies committed to ESG are often at less risk of exposure to accidents or lawsuits, and so offer better returns. Data from credit ratings agency and index provider Standard & Poor’s show that its ESG index has outpaced the S&P 500 in recent years.

As UK manufacturing has shrunk over the past 50 years, the proportion of emissions produced beyond its borders has ballooned. Today, around half of the UK’s carbon footprint is found abroad. However, companies are now increasingly aware of their indirect Scope 2 and 3 emissions, both because of increased corporate social responsibility, and because the regulatory environment grows more stringent. For example, UK companies trading in the US and the EU now need to comply with regulations like the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, its Circular Economy Action Plan, and the US’s Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.

As a result of this and other concerns about supply chain resiliency and geopolitics, 78% of UK execs have a reindustrialisation strategy or are currently developing their strategies, and around two thirds are banking on reindustrialisation to help their organisation meet its climate ambitions in the next three years. According to our data, reindustrialisation is expected to drive on average

A Solvable Problem

The world is off track to end deforestation, but accelerating financial sector and policy action could help change course. The fight to end deforestation is at a critical juncture ahead of a UN-backed recommendation for reaching net zero commodity-driven deforestation by 2025, as part of efforts to keep global warming…

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Taxonomies are not Instruments of Industrial Policy

Christina Ng, Managing Director of the Energy Shift Institute says Asia’s transition finance complications could harm its climate goals.

Is transition finance an attempt to extend the spectrum of green finance? Or is it a covert means of financing non-green activities, which have had limited opportunity in gaining access to sustainability-conscious investors?

This phenomenon appears to be occurring in Asian markets.

And nowhere is this more apparent than in the realm of national financing frameworks, where the drive to foster economic growth is so strong that it can be pursued at the expense of transitioning to a genuinely green and sustainable energy future.

Recent developments underscore this troubling trend.

For example, Indonesia’s revamped Sustainable Finance Taxonomy incorporates certain new and existing coal-fired power plants as transition activities and therefore qualifies them for transition finance. The Indonesian government justifies this classification due to the role of coal power generation in processing critical minerals for electric vehicles and clean energy technologies – which aim to contribute to economic growth.

Flawed reasoning

This flawed reasoning not only perpetuates the reliance on fossil fuels but also risks alienating climate-minded foreign investors. Indonesia’s logic, if applied universally, would imply that any power plant, including fossil-fired ones, could be labelled transitional, simply because it powers the manufacturing of clean energy technologies.

Up in the northeast of the region, the government of Japan launched a Green Transformation (GX) policy. It aims to switch Japan’s fossil fuel-oriented industries to clean energy focused ones and issue sovereign transition bonds, among other instruments, to finance the GX plan. But a deeper dive reveals that the centrepiece of the government’s GX strategy is about ensuring economic growth.

This observation is also shared in a Sustainable Fitch note which found an emphasis on the term ‘competitiveness’. Specifically, the term was mentioned 15 times in the GX framework as compared to just once in Singapore’s green financing plan and not at all in India’s framework. The note goes on to say “this may explain why some of the eligible transition activities under Japan’s strategy are supportive of industry, but do not meet international green standards”. The questionable activities referred in Japan’s strategy include hydrogen, gas infrastructure, and ammonia co-firing in coal and gas power plants.

The approaches in Indonesia and Japan overlook the fundamental goal of sustainable finance – chiefly, to channel capital to activities that mitigate greenhouse gas emissions that would, in

How Investors can Accelerate the Food and Agriculture Revolution

Dr Henning Stein, Finance Fellow at Cambridge Judge Business School, and Ariel Barack, CEO of Ordway Selections, explain why the drivers of change – and the roles of the public and private markets – are evolving.

Efforts to build a genuinely sustainable food and agriculture system have now been under way for a number of years. On the whole, the story so far has reflected an uncomfortable truth: revolutions are messy.

There have been few exceptions to this rule throughout history. Political, social and even scientific upheaval has almost always proved tumultuous, for the simple reason that radical change is seldom easily achieved.

Given this, we should not be surprised that the global transformation of how we produce and consume food has been neither flawless nor swift. Equally, we should not shy away from its imperfect path to date.

There is no denying that some of the setbacks have been jarring. There is also no denying that many investors’ faith in the quest to feed humanity while safeguarding the environment has been undermined.

Other stakeholders have also been left disenchanted. By way of illustration, consider all those who have ‘bet the farm’ – sometimes literally as well as figuratively – on novel technologies whose promise has not yet translated into tangible results.

Yet none of this means we are in the midst of a revolution that is doomed to fail. Rather, it means we are still on a steep learning curve.

As investors, we have to understand what has happened, recognise where errors have been made and rethink our approaches. In public and private markets alike, there are important lessons to digest.

The irrefutable case for change

It is first imperative to appreciate why, in spite of limited progress, the investment attractions of sustainable food and agriculture not only remain strong but have arguably increased. This obliges us to see the bigger picture.

The most significant point here is that this is a transition that absolutely has to take place. The policies and practices that have dominated food production and consumption for the past three quarters of a century are no longer fit for purpose.

Incorporating farming, processing and distribution, the food system in its entirety is responsible for around a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions. In turn, the dire effects of climate change – including extreme weather events, ecological decline and dwindling biodiversity – are ravaging landscapes and