Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1512467
52 SMT007 MAGAZINE I DECEMBER 2023 ing, and blockchain. e opportunity to make money is a key driver for industry and the economy, as is the opportunity to save money. Sustainability, however, is quite an emo- tive subject because it brings sudden lifestyle changes into both business operations and society. We oen implement urgent initiatives without fully thinking them through. For example, finding discarded plastic bot- tles on beaches led to biodegradable plas- tics, without really considering the effects these new plastics themselves would have as they degrade. According to recent studies, we each consume a credit-card worth of plas- tic every week—the dam- age is done. e core prob- lem has always been those who carelessly discard dan- gerous items, such as plastic bottles, disposable barbe- cues, and glass, rather than making the effort to recy- cle them. Everyone ends up paying a greater price due to the acts of careless indi- viduals. Meanwhile, com- panies see this and meet the demand, provide solu- tions—and gain revenues. Unfortunately, they oen just shi the prob- lem rather than solve it, all at the customers' expense. erefore, it is natural that companies feel powerless and frustrated with growing sus- tainability requirements. Demands are made on them to take responsibility, and openly col- lect and share data. ere is a vast new level of reporting overhead to meet customer and gov- ernment sustainability requirements at a time when there is no form, structure, or interop- erability throughout the industry, nor even agreement on how things should be measured and presented. Groups of companies and orga- nizations, usually within a narrow segment of their respective industries, are currently being driven to "go for gold," creating whatever solu- tions they can to fulfill these sudden sustain- ability requirements. Companies then devise countless offset schemes to provide quick wins without really considering the impact of not really changing anything. ey demand a high degree of pioneer-based investment for devel- opment and adoption, followed by a high cost of ongoing ownership and connectivity, with a high risk that their solutions will fall short of customer requirements, or exceed supplier capability. Manufacturers are currently le daunted with an unbearable cost and risk. Providers of quick-and-dirty sustainabil- ity solutions are springing up everywhere to meet immediate needs, but are these really thought through? Almost every man- ufactured product has a com- plex supply network behind it—companies of all sizes creating and supplying mate- rials from the most critical to the least significant. ey can be based anywhere in the world and support a variety of customers and industry segments simultaneously. It is very unlikely that a small group of closely related enti- ties will come up with solutions that are scal- able, secure, and acceptable for those who cur- rently are rightly very concerned about leak- age of IP as well as privacy. Learning from hindsight is a lazy excuse for not initially thinking things through, and for setting goals that are too short-term. Let's envisage where we need to be for sustainability in a way that suits individual business needs, is interoperable with others, scalable, and sus- tainable. We need a mechanism for exchanging information that defines, discloses, and shares facts with shared universal definitions. ey will be proofs of actions, events, measure- ments, results, or constituents, all exchanged in the form of signed digital certificates (creden- tials). ere is, therefore, no need to expose We often implement urgent initiatives without fully thinking them through.