Top 10: Smart Infrastructure Strategies
Smart infrastructure strategies have a range of uses, from increasing efficiency to promoting resilience in the face of climate change.
These strategies can enhance quality of life for urban residents through improving local services, such as public transport, alongside harnessing environmental benefits.
Smart solutions to infrastructure could decrease emissions by up to 15% in waste tracking alone, so harnessing these technologies could go a long way in protecting the planet.
We’ve ranked 10 of the top smart infrastructure strategies.
10. Blockchain for energy trading
Company: SAP
CEO: Christian Klein
Founded: 1972
Headquarters: Walldorf, Germany
Blockchain is a transparent, secure and tamper-proof way to record transactions using distributed ledger technology. This stores data in multiple locations over a shared network and allows for the history of transactions to be easily verified, such as energy trading.
SAP offers blockchain-as-a-service (BaaS) which can allow for peer-to-peer solar energy sales.
When, for instance, one entity produces more solar energy than it can use on a sunny day, this can be sold to another entity that can acquire the low-carbon benefits of this energy.
9. Smart water management
Company: Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)
CEO: Antonio Neri
Founded: 1939
Headquarters: Texas, USA
HPE provides infrastructure as a service through its GreenLake platform that supports water management operations, for example wastewater.
This helps cities and municipalities to maintain essential water services without interruption and reduce water consumption.
Leveraging IoT devices and sensors allows municipalities to monitor stormwater runoff and manage drainage systems more effectively, helping to mitigate flooding risks that are potentially caused by the impacts of climate change.
8. Smart traffic management
Company: Google
CEO: Sundar Pichai
Founded: 1998
Headquarters: California, USA
At city intersections, emissions can be 29 times higher than on open roads due to traffic accelerating after stopping.
Google created an AI system that can reduce traffic emissions through changing the frequency and lengths of stops at traffic lights.
Kate Brandt, Chief Sustainability Officer at Google, says: “We believe that fighting climate change is an important collective challenge and for three decades, we have been using technology to accelerate meaningful action.
“While we recognise that digital technology alone will not solve the climate crisis, we can already see the tremendous potential that it holds to help accelerate action on sustainability and climate while simultaneously empowering economic growth.”
7. Electric vehicle charging infrastructure
Company: Tesla
CEO: Elon Musk
Founded: 2003
Headquarters: Texas, USA
Electric vehicles (EVs) are almost undoubtedly the future, providing a cleaner option to mobility than fossil fuels. Without infrastructure, it is difficult to convince consumers to choose EVs.
What’s more, including charging infrastructure is an opportunity for cities and towns to upgrade their electrical grids.
With more than 60,000 Superchargers, Tesla owns and operates the largest global EV fast charging network in the world.
These chargers are capable of adding 200 miles of range to some electric vehicles in just 15 minutes.
6. Circular economy principles
Company: HP
CEO: Enrique Lores
Founded: 2015
Headquarters: California, USA
Extending the life of useful resources and reusing them instead of creating waste can make a big environmental difference.
HP incorporates circular practices into its operations, for instance through its use of recycled materials and design for circularity.
The company aims to achieve 75% circularity for its products and packaging by 2030 and eliminate 75% of single-use plastic packaging by 2025.
The company also provides service-based solutions to reduce environmental impacts through extended life, value retention and convenient take-back of devices for repair and refurbishment.
5. District heating and cooling
Company: Veolia
CEO: Estelle Brachlianoff
Founded: 1853
Headquarters: Aubervilles, France
District heating, also known as a heat network, uses a singular central heat source to distribute hot water through a network of insulated pipes. It can deliver low-carbon cost-effective heating efficiently.
Veolia has a portfolio of more than 60 district heating and cooling networks around the world and full in-house capabilities to take projects from early feasibility stages to the operation and maintenance of assets.
The company aims to transform heating and cooling provisions through deploying low-carbon technologies such as heat recovery from data centres and wastewater assets.
4. Integrating renewable energy sources
Company: Microsoft
CEO: Satya Nadella
Founded: 1975
Headquarters: Washington, USA
Microsoft is a huge supporter of clean energy and signed the world’s largest clean power agreement in May 2024 worth US$10bn to develop renewable energy projects over a six year period.
By integrating this clean energy, the company is dramatically reducing its carbon footprint, most of which comes from data centres.
“We want to use our influence and purchasing power to create lasting positive impact for all electricity consumers,” says Adrian Anderson, Microsoft’s General Manager for Renewables.
3. Improving building efficiency
Company: IBM
CEO: Arvind Krishna
Founded: 1911
Headquarters: New York, USA
IBM’s smart building solutions are built on the IBM Cloud and integrate IoT technologies.
Its TRIRIGA Application Suite is an Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS) that supports real estate and facilities teams to manage portfolios and assets throughout their life cycle.
This solution can help to identify facilities and processes that are resource intensive and automate carbon reduction actions to reduce energy costs and comply with regulations around the world.
The software isn’t just for energy efficiency, it has big benefits for building occupants.
Kendra DeKeyrel, VP for ESG and Asset Management Products Leader at IBM, explains: “Indoor mapping and wayfinding provide capabilities to improve occupant experience by allowing employees and visitors to search for points of interest and navigate properties.
“Outdoor GIS allows facility managers to display and interact with portfolio data on a map for insightful visual analysis.”
2. AI and ML
Company: Honeywell
CEO: Vimal Kapur
Founded: 1906
Headquarters: North Carolina, USA
Honeywell Forge Sustainability+ for Buildings is a solution to increase the ease of managing siloed energy data and provide insight into a building’s carbon emissions.
It allows businesses to leverage AI and machine learning (ML) for efficiency at a system level.
The company is working with Cisco on an AI-powered solution that automatically adapts building systems based on fluctuating usage levels to reduce energy consumption.
"Buildings have historically been a substantial contributor to overall carbon emissions, but with the rise of hybrid work, operators now have the opportunity to take a fresh look at addressing their environmental impact by moving their HVAC systems away from consistent 9-to-5 schedules," says Greg Turner, Chief Technology Officer of Honeywell's Building Automation segment.
"By tapping into a building's existing technology infrastructure and harnessing the power of AI to fine-tune heating and cooling according to zone occupancy levels, our collaboration with Cisco empowers building owners to gain control of their environment and significantly curb emissions."
1. IoT technologies
Company: Siemens
CEO: Roland Busch
Founded: 1847
Headquarters: Munich, Germany
Siemens is a leading provider of IoT technologies, leveraging these smart devices for sustainable outcomes such as improving energy efficiency and reducing wasted resources.
Siemens’ Electrification X is a suite of IoT-based SaaS solutions to help manage, optimise and automate electrification infrastructure for customers across industries such as utility, industrial and commercial.
It provides an integrated IoT suite that can support the transition to clean energy through increasing energy efficiency, reliability and extending the lifetime of assets.
In Switzerland, Siemens is making Kantonsspital Baden one of the country’s smartest hospitals using IoT devices. The project will implement more than 7,000 sensors to improve patient care and increase energy efficiency among other benefits.
“The healthcare sector presents a number of interesting opportunities for digitalisation,” says Janina Beilner, Senior Vice President Healthcare at Siemens Smart Infrastructure.
“How can we make best use of technologies to support our customers on their digital transformation journey, to improve hospital processes and optimise clinical workflows?
“Our approach, developed in close cooperation with customers, uses digital tools and services to build an IoT platform in which solutions to specific challenges can be tailored, added and scaled as they arise. It is the perfect example of our Siemens Xcelerator ecosystem at work.”
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