Sustaira together with Mendix and Siemens at Hannover Messe; Combining Technology, Innovation, and Sustainability
Next week, Hannover Messe, one of the world’s largest trade fairs that is dedicated to the topic of industry development, is kicking off its annual fair on May 31st. As exhibitors and speakers gear up for the event, Sustaira is proud to participate together with Mendix and Siemens.
The Siemens motto for Hannover Messe 2022 is, “Let’s combine real and digital worlds for a sustainable tomorrow” and this couldn’t be more fitting to the goal of Sustaira. Together, Mendix and Sustaira will share a handful of examples of where Mendix in partnership with Sustaira can help organizations through their Sustainability and ESG Journey.
Sustaira’s all-in-one Sustainability and ESG Application Platform
ESG and Sustainability Goals and KPI Tracker Application
Sustaira’s Carbon Accounting Application
Sustainability Gamification and Rewarding
An inside look on how the combination of Sustaira and the low-code platform Mendix can create totally custom applications to meet any need
Sustainability and ESG Challenges:
Sustainability and ESG as a whole is truly a journey. Regardless of where an organization may be, whether they are early on and setting goals or perhaps are deeper in their journey and diving into scope 3 emissions, there are core challenges most everyone is facing:
Difficulties keeping up with changing requirements and regulatory needs
Sustainability/ESG Data is siloed and disparate inside and outside of the organization
There is on easy and efficient way to aggregate and manage the data with too many manual, error prone processes and Excel spreadsheets.
Incapable of turning insights into measurable action, as there is no real way to track progress and results based on set goals.
Unable to engage employees, students, and other stakeholders around sustainability.
Inefficient Reporting and a lack of transparency in the supply chain and product lifecycle.
The Sustaira Sustainability Circle:
With these challenges in mind, this leads to why the Mendix low-code platform is such an essential tool in solving these challenges. At Sustaira, Mendix is one of the technologies leveraged to address each and every challenge above. Sustaira has created what is called the Sustaira Sustainability Circle.
This circle is a great visual of what Sustaira is doing on top of the Mendix low-code platform. Sustainability and ESG is about going beyond just reporting. It includes the entire sustainability journey from goal setting, to data aggregation and awareness, to taking action, to seeing results and rewards of those actions, to the ever important digital reporting piece.
Within each part of the circle, Sustaira has created low-code application templates dedicated to the needs of each area. These templates are “building blocks” meant to accelerate an organization’s journey that can be rapidly tailored to each organization’s needs. Underneath the circle, you see internal and external data sources such as ERP, CRM, PLM, HR Systems, Excel, and more. Think of Sustaira and the Mendix platform as a smart layer on top of these systems. The Sustaira platform and its low-code applications can integrate directly with these existing systems to bring all of your sustainability into a single source.
Examples
At Hannover Messe, the following applications and overviews will be shared in more detail. To see what will be shared at the fair and learn more, be sure to watch our recent webinar featuring Mendix’s Industry Manager for Supply Chain Management, Sönke Hotsch. You can view that webinar here.
The Sustaira Sustainability Launchpad:
This launchpad is where the Sustaira Sustainability Circle comes to life. This is a configurable launchpad that provides a single dashboard or aggregate of all an organization's applications in the form of tiles. Here, there is the option to have any number of existing Sustaira applications or even add a custom application.
Sustaira Goals and KPI Tracker Application:
The Sustaira Goals and KPI Tracker application will allow users to set goals and KPIs, track progress and build accountability. The main dashboard is a Kanban styled dashboard to show the progress of any projects or goals an organization has. Currently, Goals and KPI are based on the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Users can create projects around this framework, or if an organization aligns with something else there is the option to create projects that align to any framework of your choosing.
When selecting any project users will be able to add any KPIs and track data points. This can show the progress being made, the future goal, and can even forecast the next data point based on your previous data points. Set action items and assign users to each action item to help manage any internal goals that don't reflect in the KPI data, but ultimately enable an organization to reach those KPIs/Goals.
If a user needs help getting started or isn’t sure where to go next, simply use the suggested projects throughout the app or through the quick start survey at the top of your KPI Dashboard.
Custom Applications - Empowering Procurement and Transparency:
For customization or personalization, this speaks to the core of the Mendix Platform as users can decide they need something very specific for their needs. The Mendix platform as well as Sustaira, enables users to build their own applications in a fraction of the time it would take with traditional coding software. The example highlighted at Hannover Messe is dedicated to looking at each piece or component that an organization may manufacture, and diving into “how can we make this component more sustainable?”
Sustaira Carbon Accounting Application:
In the Carbon Accounting Module, users can customize the main dashboard through the scope selection tab and select any relevant scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions categories. These selections will be reflected in the main dashboard making it suit specific needs perfectly. At the bottom of the dashboard there is a monthly data entry chart that allows for manual data entry or integrations. Adding data is as easy as a few clicks and entering the MTCO2 emission for that date.
If a user doesn’t know your calculated emissions, use one of Sustaira’s built in calculators by selecting “calculate,” Currently Sustaira offers calculators based on the Greenhouse Gas Protocol available for Waste, Energy, Travel and Fugitive Emissions.
Want someone else to fill in data for a category? Assign users to tasks in the category bar. Users will then see any of their assignments, in their filtered list under “tasks”
Perhaps some of the data needed is from an external source, such as a supplier. Head over to the supplier area and users can add suppliers to this module and request information from them and start the conversation to help you aggregate your scope 3 emissions. The supplier portal allows suppliers to input and share data without accessing all of an organization's information.
Last but not least, this module also allows for Integrations with exposed ODATA or an API for importing bulk data into the Carbon Accounting module.
Sustainability Gamification and Rewarding:
Last but not least, in the Engagement and Rewards application users can see an overview of employees’ progress towards predetermined goals in the system. Users can unlock achievements for things such as calculating their carbon footprint, offsetting MTCO2, or simply logging into the platform on a daily basis to check on their sustainability. This fosters awareness, engagement and can create action and accountability. You'll notice that this is integrated with other modules within the platform as well, such as offsetting.
Getting Started:
For those interested in learning more about what Sustaira together with Siemens and Mendix shares at Hannover Messe, please view our recent webinar here. If you are interested in setting up a conversation with Sustaira during or after Hannover Messe, drop us a line below!
