Virtual Twins powerful tool to promote sustainable development
Today we have realized that in order to prevent the irreversible damage caused by climate change, we must take urgent action. The extent of environmental degradation from current production and consumption patterns is reaching the point of no return. For example, nearly 90% of the world’s marine fish stocks are now fully exploited, overexploited or depleted. By 2030, we could face a shortage of 40% of fresh water.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have given companies and governments a clear set of goals to strive for by 2030, which means we have only a decade to deliver on our commitments.
However, previous approaches have not been enough to achieve a carbon-free “circular economy” this decade. The world needs more disruptive innovations.
While companies, organizations and governments are increasingly setting goals for achieving sustainability, the actual plans are getting harder and harder to execute. The reason is, for all good business purposes, most organizations still don’t understand the steps to take so as to specifically meet these goals. Can Virtual Twins (Digital Twins) technology help companies in this aspect?
What is Virtual Twins?
Virtual Twins are real-time virtual representations of a product, platform, or even a complex ecosystem, such as a city. Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform and DELMIA software are a way to create pairs of virtual twins, used to invent, model, and test disruptive innovations. By eliminating the need for physical prototypes to reduce time to bring products to market. By enabling rapid design iteration and collaboration in the virtual world, it reduces the risks associated with complex projects and improves regulatory compliance.
In addition, virtual twins provide a safe test environment for circular and environmentally friendly innovation. By modeling the entire value chain, digital twins can improve the sustainability of products and services throughout the lifecycle, from design for reuse to minimizing the use of materials in the manufacturing process. output to carbon emissions estimates to a recovery logistics model for circular economy systems.
In the Automotive industry, for example, virtual twins accelerate the conceptualization, detailed design, and design verification phases, while reducing physical checks.
Result? A lower carbon footprint and more cyclic design. Numbers speak for themselves. A major European OEM has slashed the physical prototype development process by 70-100% for limited design models by using virtual model design and verification.
These are not some promising future technologies: Virtual Twins are up and running right now, with an estimated US$5.4 billion market and proven achievements. about helping companies and industries around the world improve the way they grow and operate. The market will grow at an amazing rate; forecast to have a compound annual growth rate of 36% over the next 5 years. But the current digital twin adoption rate is only 10% globally, meaning there is a lot of untapped potential for wider adoption of the technology to address sustainability challenges. global sustainability and accelerate the achievement of the United Nations SDGs.
Reduce greenhouse gas emissions with Virtual Twins technology
Reduce greenhouse gas emissions with Virtual Twins . technology Accenture and Dassault Systèmes have collaborated on a new study, Design Innovation: The Vital Role of Virtual Twins in Sustainable Acceleration, to advance understanding of how digital twins can help meet the world’s sustainability goals. This study explores use cases from five industries: construction, consumer packaged goods, transportation, life sciences, and electronics. These five virtual twin use cases alone could result in more than 7.5 tonnes of CO2e reduction by 2030 and $1.3 trillion in economic value.
This groundbreaking research is about transforming value chains that deliver the goods and services the world demands. Continuous and incremental improvements in productivity, resource use, emissions and waste reduction are essential. But such efforts alone will not solve the climate crisis or achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). That requires a fundamental transformation of underlying systems and processes, and large-scale deployment of digital twin technologies across industries is the answer.
Download this research paper to discover more about how Virtual Twins technologies can deliver significant sustainable innovation at scale to achieve the UN SDGs and redesign the global economy in line with more cyclic direction and less carbon.