Beyond the mist – TRIRIGA and Envizi – Part 2

Part 1 of this article series is available here.

Continuing from the previous post, a report by Sustainable Brands based on a review of 50 companies concluded the following:

• ESG is no longer a niche but a bar to compete with 48 out of 50 companies reviewed referring to social responsibility or sustainability.
• ESG goal setting is now widespread among Fortune 250 companies with a total of 715 ESG goals on topics ranging from greenhouse gas emissions to waste, water, land use, forests, biodiversity, economic development, health and wellness, workplace diversity, worker safety, gender equality, transparency, and responsible procurement
• Transformational goals are still rare as transformational goals represent less than 20 per cent of all plans.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are making inroads into Companies to the top; however, much still needs to be done. For example, current goals focus on reducing the current operations’ impact and improving the value of product offerings. Instead, we need bold transformational goals that impact the whole eco-system and value chain and could potentially create or change business models in future.

For readers interested in setting up an ESG strategy for sustainable value creation for their Company, this white paper “Measuring Stakeholder Capitalism Towards Common Metrics and Consistent Reporting of Sustainable Value Creation” from the World Economic Forum is an excellent reference.

Another good paper related to a framework developed by Schneider Electric in conjunction with WEF called “Towards Net-Zero Buildings: A Practical Pathway.”

So, on a strategic level, all of this makes sense; however, how do we start to execute some tangible actions to achieve small results to eventually get to large-scale improvements and thereby lead to sustainable value creation?

There are multiple use cases for Sustainability for Businesses and numerous solutions to enable an organisation to reach its goals. These articles will not do justice to a broad and open-ended trending topic. There is a lot of focus, investments and innovation currently being applied in this area; hence, we will hear more about these topics from the marketplace.

To keep the content digestible, from now on, we shall focus more on the technology part of the action.

The overall flow of data between TRIRIGA and Envizi:

TRIRIGA and Envizi have their nuances when it comes to the data. There is a data mastering approach to be considered; the data which needs to be exchanged in what sequence and schedule and which system will become the source of record for which data sets. Several discussions need to happen regarding the shared data sets between the two systems and agree on the data exchange rules.

The core for both systems is what we refer to in TRIRIGA as the “Portfolio Data” and is referred to in Envizi as “Organization Data Hierarchy”. Therefore, the first step must be to align the underlying data structure, which will act as the building blocks for the rest of the data.

In terms of overall flow, the data flow could take any shape depending on an organisation’s needs. Therefore, through this article, we shall describe a general data flow which makes sense to us; however, each case differs, and you would need some variation from the flow described here.

The following diagram shows how TRIRIGA and Envizi can work together.

Figure 01: TRIRIGA and Envizi high-level data flow.

TRIRIGA Data Sets:

Looking at this diagram, let us dive into various aspects of it.

Figure 02: TRIRIGA lifecycle

TRIRIGA, on its own, is capable enough to manage the lifecycle of a physical asset, for example, a Building in this instance. The lifecycle of a Building from the TRIRIGA perspective is as below:

• Acquiring and Built-out through the “Capital Projects” module
• Manage assets and Portfolio data through the “Portfolio” module
• Utilisation and maintenance are through the “Reserve”, “Facilities Management”, and “Operations & Maintenance” module
• Manage sustainability is through the “Sustainability” module, and
• Disposal is through the “Capital Projects” module

Within the Sustainability module, we have various areas and options to capture a different set of data:

We can capture Utility Invoices and Utility Invoice Line Items:

Figure 03: Utility billing data

We can capture meter readings against the meter data mastered in TRIRIGA either through automated feeds, smart meters, or manual reading tasks.

Figure 04: Meter and meter readings data

We have options to capture the Weather Station data and the corresponding degree days data.

Figure 05: Climate data

We can capture various Emission Factors to utilise in Carbon calculations.

Figure 06: Emission factor data

We have multiple other data entry points related to Energy, Climate, Travel, Waste, Water, and Emission and can also capture carbon credits or carbon offsets.

Figure 07: Sustainability Logs

We can collect any other missing data through Surveys.

Figure 08: Survey data

We can capture all these data sets manually or through automated means for the inbound flow.

MobileKraft offers a pre-built API layer and Sustainability APIs to capture all these data points. In addition, all the data schemas and usage scenarios are available to view online in an API Explorer App, and the APIs align with OpenAPI specifications, so getting started with data capture is straightforward, and the time to go live is short.

Data Set for exchange:

Now, let’s focus on the data exchange between TRIRIGA and Envizi. There are multiple data sets that TRIRIGA can master and provide as a feed (scheduled or real-time) to Envizi to help define the Organisational data hierarchy in Envizi.

Apart from Portfolio data, various building usage metrics can be provided to Envizi for usage in carbon calculations.

Other data sets focused on the Sustainability module can be easily shared. In specific scenarios, these data will already be in Envizi through existing feeds, so these data can be reverse-fed into TRIRIGA to keep the systems in sync.

Figure 09: Outward data from TRIRIGA

We can perform the reporting and trending in Envizi on a broader scale. Concerning the data TRIRIGA can receive from Envizi, we can reverse-feed some important KPIs and metrics on Sustainability performance.

Figure 10: Inward data into TRIRIGA

Envizi Data Sets:

Figure 11: Envizi lifecycle

The lifecycle of a Building from Envizi’s perspective is as below:

Envizi is dealing with submitting the required data in the format needed for various ESG and Energy rating frameworks. It will also receive the results and benchmarking data from these providers. In addition, we can import any Energy ratings for buildings back into TRIRIGA and, if required, could also feed specific essential ESG reporting KPIs back into TRIRIGA for more tactical actions.

Additionally, we would be able to analyse trends and assess the progress vs the goals through the reporting and trend analysis features within Envizi. The output from the reports will help formulate any improvement opportunities we can log into TRIRIGA. These opportunities can drive improvements through the various business processes and lifecycle tools.

Most of these data feeds are not time sensitive and need not be real-time, but they could be as real-time as the organisation requires.

There is still much to discover within Envizi from our perspective; however, there are Envizi experts within IBM and IBM Business Partners who can help you get started. For more information, see this page: Sustainability: ambition to action

We shall cover Envizi data exchange scenarios in a future article, including how MobileKraft can help you get started quickly and achieve a short time to market.

In my next article, I shall cover the portfolio data exchange in more detail.

Please provide me with your feedback either by leaving a message here or through a direct message.

Continue reading through Part 3 of the series.