Emissions & Air Quality: A 2023 Smart Class Presentation

Okay. So next up, I'm really pleased to welcome back. Hannah Win Stanley from Brightley. Brightly, now a Siemens company is a global leader in Intelligence Asset Management Solutions. Hannah is Senior Director for the EMEA Client Services Center, and she leads Bright Lee's four carbon reduction plan Working with local government, she's run complex long term projects and budgets, including a substantial program of works for National highways. Hannah, by the way, will be joined for the round tables later on by senior client solutions architect, Steve Harris. In the meantime, Hannah is going to explain how enterprise asset management enables organizations to transform the performance of their assets. For example, road signs, carriageways, vehicles, street lighting, and trees. And she'll explain how they manage how to manage the operational data, which is integral to decision making and planning for net zero. Lovely. Thank you very much, Mark. Thanks. Cheers. Thanks everybody. So, yes, I'd like to talk about asset management today. So we aspire at Brightley, now part of Siemens, to be the smartest asset management system, and we provide asset management solutions across the globe from to facilities management in schools in North America to life cycle planning in Antarctica. So quite a breath a breadth of of asset management systems there. Me personally, I work mainly in the UK, and we deliver asset management systems to local government, local authorities to manage their highways assets in the main. So that is your roads, your street furniture, your street lighting, your trees, grounds, etcetera. And and we do our ethos is to be the smartest asset management system What that means is that we are connected to smart assets, so the street lighting systems smart drainage systems to to notify whether there's a flood flood risk event or put them in key locations to identify where the the levels are getting too high, you might want to go and and and do some proactive intervention there. And also looking at that life cycle and the whole life of an asset and what treatments and what operations it needs to be done to keep it a condition that maintains the safety for the users. So in the main, our main focus is the asset. So we are managing the assets whether whether they be from the the variety of things, maintaining them from from a sort of process of keeping them functional, clean in a condition that you want to use them. Managing them in terms of planning for future maintenance, looking at that whole life cycle, so the the actual treatments that you might use in future, automation, which is that smart infrastructure for the assets. And then stainling them and creating this in in a sort of sustainable operations and maintenance which I'm going to talk about mainly today actually. And lastly, we have engagement piece, so how you're interacting with your citizens. What what are you actually doing in terms of allowing your citizens to interact with the, you know, the data as it seems to be hot topic today, about, you know, when will my road be fixed? When am I put that pothole outside my house and be filled, the streetlight that's sort of constantly on when's that going to be rectified. So these sort of things that that we all kind of interact with is is held within our system so that kind of engagement piece throughout. What we're seeing from sort of versions of life cycle management is that traditionally we were concerned with condition performance and cost in terms of managing assets. And now what we're seeing is there's this sustainability factor. It's the force of pillar if you like in terms of looking at managing assets. And that is from beginning, from inception, from creation, through to disposal of that asset. And the big piece in the middle is that maintaining it. So we're seeing this trend of sustainability coming through. However, on the ground when I speak to customers, what I'm actually saying the the current state is that there's actually so much or so many different types of ways in which to measure this, that actually no action is happening. So I'll give you an example of that. So we're working quite closely with the future highways research group who are doing work to provide guidance to local authorities and how they actually measure their emissions from vehicle use, scope one and two through to scope three. The members of that group, which has lots of local authorities across the UK, identified thirty two different types of carbon calculators. So there's there's already thirty two different ways in which people are measuring measuring emissions. So what happens is is that people say, well actually without one definitive because there's so much choice and because I don't really know what to do in terms of, you know, proper action or what's gonna happen in the future, and people don't do anything. You know, that's that's that's kind of where we're seeing people what people are doing. There are some people that are kind of leading the way and baselining their emissions right now But without that kind of real standard way in which to do things you can't measure against your peers so that that benchmarking isn't happening. There are fund there is funding out there, so the LiveLabs project that came out recently. There's two million in funding there for the LiveLabs. So there is there's money out there to to to do that. The theme of that live labs was decarbonization of road and we think that more and more in future, that is going to become a criteria in in people's decision making and and access to funding. And what's happening is that we're we're no closer to net zero even though the UK have committed to having our emissions by two thousand and thirty and being net zero by two thousand and fifty. So I like to well, I used to talk about these pictures quite a lot. This is Hammerswytham Fulham. One of our clients in London, and this was the twelfth of July twenty twenty one where they had severe flooding, went all the way through the tube and underground structures. And I mean a lot of the UK local authorities declared climate emergencies, but this was a, you know, proper state of emergency on that that time period where the flooding happened. On that very same day, in the in death valley, they reported record temp This is fifty four Celsius. You could cook a medium rare steak in the on those in that temperature. And so I used to sort of put these big pictures up and sort of say, well look at, you know, I kind of did it in a sense of like thinking, you know, whether there was kind of climate deniers out there. I don't think it actually happens anymore. But I've since realized that by using these types of images is actually really unhelpful Because what it means is that people think, this is too big a problem. Like I can't solve this problem, like looking at the, you know, pictures of polar bears and ice caps melting. It's like, this is well outside of my sphere of control. And And so you then get it kind of adds to that no action kind of sentiment. Right? And I think I can't I'm I'm not gonna be able to change this. So, you know, I won't I'll go about and I'll, you know, I won't do any sort of big action. So you think about what's in with your center of what things you control of what you can do in action and then outside of that and they're sort of periphery you have what you can influence, so where you're actually talking can can change things from influencing people. And then the outer edge is that sort of concern when you're just like, I'm really worried about it, but actually can't do anything about it. So yes, I I felt like I feel like some of these like climate change has a bad rep in that regard. But what can we control and when we work with our customers, and what the one thing they can control is their assets. So what they know about their assets, how they're managing, how they're maintaining, how they're going to and from those assets is something that they do control. And what our findings have shown us is actually that the journey times between assets and when they're going to fix them is actually where the most emissions is happening, So we're starting to log sort of commuter miles to and from depots. Then from these vehicles traveling between the assets to go out and fix them. Sometimes the policy and interventions is is creating a scenario where they're saying we have to fix a pothole within two hours of being of it being notified. That might mean in more rural areas, you're traveling five times the distance to go and fix it, I mean, someone's notified you on that day, but that might pothole might have been around for, you know, five days previous. So there's this sort of setting this sort of unrealistic and policies to go and fix things, which actually means it's adding to that vehicle journey time The materials and waste that are generated from going and and maintaining the asset, so whether you're replacing a street lamp or if you're, you know, pruning trees. Actually has a sort of very small impact where you think it's quite surprising you would have thought that the materials would would hold them the most amount of emissions. It's not it's actually the vehicle use. So the other trend that we're seeing so so sorry. What we're feeling is that there are four stages in which people are recording their their their carbon right now. So this is the local authorities that we deal with. And I'll be interested while I go through these. If if this is relevant relevant for you in customers, what sort of stage you feel like you are at. And this is so historic emissions, people are looking back and they're saying, well what have we done and they're doing these sort of big handfuls. I used this much petrol last year, and therefore, that's how much emissions I I use. So that's sort of like the historic emissions stage one, which is it's still valid, you know, because you still have. It's still based on data, it's still based on the fact that you know how many times you how many potholes you fixed. So I'll go through an example of that a bit later. Operational carbon. So that's your recording it right now. The the to and from journeys that you're doing as well as the materials that you're using. That's why you're actually working and recording your emissions right now and and and during the work you're doing. Making greener decisions, so that's offering different options and scenarios. So actually saying, well, you're going to do well, do you want to combine this journey or this fix or this maintenance into three other jobs for me, do you only go once? We've got other people other clients that are using a pothole pro and I keep talking about potholes. Amists? People love talking about files. I will going to talk more about them later as well. But in Stoke City, they have a pothole pro, which basically goes along and fills a pothole there and then it takes seven minutes to do that. And they think they've say they've actually saved seven years' worth of work going and fixing with this machine. Because they don't have to close the road to fix it, they don't have to take several vehicles to go and do it, they don't they're literally fixing it on-site and moving on. Now I'm worried that they're actually going and they're they're fixing everything that's a smaller intervention level because they've done all the work, you know, and just think of the emissions that are there and I think, you know, why don't you lend that to some another council nearby? If only that would happen. So Capital planning is the last one. We're actually you're saying, okay, what sort of what are we doing in terms of that long term view, different material types that we want to use, and how do we want to change policy? As well based on data. So historic emissions so this is the work we're working with future high risk research group, and this is already providing quite a lot of insight from the data that's within our client systems. In terms of, you know, how many miles do they do per day on, you know, gully emptying, pruning. And you can see that the things like pothole repair sorry, this is very small. You might not be able to see. Well, reactive maintenance. That's going out and doing what the what people calling up and saying there's a there's there's something to do, is four times more mileage than doing the planned maintenance So you kind of think even if you started to replace some of that, you start to reduce some of those emissions. So starting starting to incorporate some of that reactive work into a planned scheme, scheme work. Operational carbon so this is one of our dashboards in that we have. And so this is looking at where you're requesting carbon from the tree assets that you have. A lot of our tree customers are having to say, well, we've we've got ash die back, which is a problem for it's a pest that we're having to cut down trees, how are we then, you know, replacing them at the same rate When we're looking at the the job itself, so this is going out and and and repairing or fulfilling a a job, than we're actually looking at recording, what vehicle you're in, how far you've gone, oops, a skipped head, as well as the materials and waste. So what did you take away? What would be able to repurpose? So you're actually logging all of this data data right now. And unless you have done that first step stage one and said, well, this is what our historic emissions were and this is where the baseline then all the good work that you're doing here to collect data or change how you do things like you to recycle, Hamisweth and Fillem actually, they don't let anything leave the burrow from their grounds department. So they're repurposing the the tree cutting, the pruning, and laying it down on path, pathways. So all of that good work unless you baseline and said, this is our starting point. When you do come to baseline, all of that good improvements that you've done are already you know, part of your baseline recording of your your your emission state. So really, I'd encourage people to do that historic emissions and and baseline your carbon sooner rather than later. And I'm I'm not sure whether you can see this very well, but this is the option where we're saying, there is a greener A bit like when you use Google Maps now and it says, do you want to like the do you want to actually take a bit longer or use different roads to actually reduce the emissions that you'll have? So trying to encourage uses that source to to make a greener option. And then what we can do with data that comes just derived from all that operational data is start to plan and start to say, well, actually our carbon intensity is in the reactive maintenance like I mentioned earlier. Is in, yes, pavement, we kind of know we knew that the pavement would be heavy in terms of the carbon that's in there because of the type of materials used. But this is a study we did for National highways actually, And the second largest material that was carbon intensive was their road restraint systems because they made of steel. So there is actually another replacement material there now for wooden ones. And I know that With all of this balancing act of trying to be more sustainable, there's for our customers, it's always the safety argument that comes sort of like as an override. And it's like we have to make sure, you know, the the streets are safe first and the people are going to be safe and the the, you know, proper restraints are in in place. But I think there there is a sort of tipping point where people can make decisions with safety and carbon in mind. So so that's the four stages. And my sort of main sort of argument and then nearly at the end here. I just want to run through a quick example. But as you can't manage what you don't measure, so you have to be able to start to know and have the accurate information about what the car's gonna as you have, what are you doing in terms of vehicle use? This is I I usually do a live demo of this, but, you know, live demos are never a good thing. So I'm going to show this this graph changing in a minute and you really look at it closely, you know, wanted to see it. What this graph is showing is that the blue line at the bottom with of the bar chart sorry, the graph, the line chart here is the best case scenario. So sorry. Let me rhyme back. This is the sort of Liverpool Stoke on trent area of our customers. And what we did is we just took the number of potholes that were recorded. In a in a year, month on month, and how many potholes. And then we said, well, in order to calculate what the vehicle and the materials used in those potholes, we had to make some assumptions. So it was based on sound data. We knew how many were done, But we then had to assume, you know, the distance between each pothole, what material was used, and what type of vehicle then went to go and and fix that part. So the blue line is the best case scenario, the shortest distance, the smallest vehicle, the most carbon effective material type. And the red is where you'd have a, you know, a longer distance bigger vehicle. So when you change the material, so you have to look closely at the other red line and actually I know that the screenshot I didn't really line anyway, we moved from a cold lay asphalt to a hot warm lay and the difference between that is marginal like it's just hardly hardly anything at all. Even though you have this sort of big, what I've referred to as vanity projects of saying, well, we're just we're now introducing warm rather than hot lay asphalt. If you change the vehicle that someone's traveled in, it actually makes a substantial difference in terms of the carbon emissions that were done. So and this is this is bit when you're making assumptions, you're kind of making the difference between, am I estimating the carbon in terms of the size of a tennis court in terms of how much the carbon that is or the size of a rugby pitch. And actually on some reason I had to research this, The tennis court is like ten meters long. When a rugby pitch is a hundred meters. I mean, who'd who'd thought, but, you know, that that sort of like this is where we may if you do make assumptions, you are, you know, the the the the the sort of volume between the the the size of those assumptions could be huge. This huge gap. So my recommendations are collect the data, first of all, use it to make your decisions, have that the natural capital in your systems as well so you know what carbon's been sequestered. Gonna be there's gonna be a cultural change as well as then being on track for your emissions. And just a last slide here, so the future state that we're hoping to track to is that carbon is being tracked and being measured. It's in a it's in a way that's done that everyone's doing it the same way so people can benchmark and learn from each other and collaborate. You know, actually help each other to reduce carbon. Funding will be secured and also will will meet those net zero goals. So Thank you. Thanks. Bradley.