The textiles-apparel-fashion world is in a flux, and it needs to figure out a number of things. First, it needs be truly sustainable in that processes of production to those of disposal stay circular. And then, it needs to brace up for a change—one that is already under way in ways that few understand fully as yet. But that is only the beginning of the problem—for, all sustainability endeavours will need to be in sync with Industry 4.0, or Textiles 4.0 as many in industry would want to refer to it.
Many are already wondering whether the two concepts can indeed be in sync, while others are deliberating over which ought to come first: sustainability or Industry 4.0. To cut a long debate short: it does not have to be an either-or discussion. One way of looking at it would be like this: the implementation of Industry 4.0 needs to be sustainable. That's all.
Early Days
In 2015, the United Nations Global Compact, which calls itself the world's largest corporate sustainability initiative, published SDG Industry Matrix to showcase industry-specific examples and ideas for corporate action related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It highlighted the following opportunities for shared value:
- Develop more resource efficient machinery that generates less effluent, waste and pollutants.
- Apply a circular economy mindset when designing products so that there is improved end-of-product lifecycle reuse and recycling.
- Incorporate innovative technologies, such as 3D printing, into manufacturing processes to reduce waste from long-run production and prototyping.
- Develop and implement improved processes (e.g. closed loop manufacturing) to reduce, reuse and recycle water, raw materials, non-renewable minerals, other inputs, by-products and waste.
- Source materials from sustainable sources (e.g. forestry products) and components with lower embedded energy.
- Increase energy efficiency in industrial manufacturing plants and across distribution networks.
- Increase the proportion of materials and components that are sourced locally in low and middle-income countries.
- Build the resilience of suppliers in emerging economies to reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental shocks and disasters.
Over the last few years, the concept of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR), or Industry 4.0 in trendier parlance, has been the subject of much discussion and speculation. Since the 2001 Hannover Fair when the term first gained currency, the subsequent technological trends, the Internet of things (IoT), automation, and cloud computing among others have made it imperative for industry to rethink and redesign their business strategies. There is a pressing need for new implementation modalities, besides new methods and tools. But all this would need to be stitched together with a sustainability thread. Companies need to use only such tools and methods that foster sustainability.
The subject, of course, is still new—the final report of the Working Group Industry 4.0 of the German government was presented at the Hannover Fair only in April 2013. Both from empirical and theoretical points of view, literature on the subject is still scarce. Even Sustainability journal is only now working on a special issue that would explore the link between Industry 4.0 and sustainability. The special issue, which will probably be published next year, "intends to encourage novel theories and research able to enrich the scholars’ and firms’ knowledge, focusing on the analysis of changes in business models, strategy formulation and implementation, management approaches for firms operating in the new outlined scenario also willing to achieve a sustainable development and/or foster sustainability."
If things remain nebulous, it is because of this—very few agree what Industry 4.0 means, and what needs to be the way out. This was pointed out, coincidentally, in the January 2018 issue of Sustainability. Three researchers—Julian Marius Müller, Daniel Kiel and Kai-Ingo Voigt, who examined the relevance of Industry 4.0-related opportunities and challenges as drivers for its implementation, had this to note: "There is still considerable uncertainty and confusion since researchers, consultancies, politicians, and practitioners frequently make contradictory statements on Industry 4.0 implications. On the one hand, it promises to provide manufacturers with profitable business models, higher efficiency and quality, as well as improved workplace conditions. On the other hand, it exposes them to, among other things, increasing competition and challenging change management. In this context, research and practice disclose a reluctant and slow realisation of this novel manufacturing paradigm, which is ascribable to unclear opportunities and challenges perceived by industrial manufacturers."
Müller and his colleagues worked on a research model comprising relevant Industry 4.0-related opportunities and challenges, and applied it on a sample of 746 German manufacturing companies from five industry sectors. They premised their research on the Triple Bottom Line of sustainability—economic, ecological, and social achievements, and pointed out that most research hitherto had restricted themselves to a single dimension of sustainability (i.e. environment): “Such considerations are of high importance, as balancing the three dimensions against each other has been found to be a critical success factor for successful technology adoption and diffusion as well as achieving sustainable benefits. In general, digitisation and interconnection of industrial processes intended by Industry 4.0 are facilitated by data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, leading to potentials in all three dimensions of sustainability. However, the achievement of sustainable benefits is accompanied by several challenges respectively, especially in the implementation phase of Industry 4.0.”
Their study showed that “strategic, operational, as well as environmental and social opportunities were positive drivers of Industry 4.0 implementation, whereas challenges with regard to competitiveness and future viability as well as organisational and production fit impede its progress.”
Industrious Days
According to Mario Hermann, Tobias Pentek and Boris Otto, there are four design principles in Industry 4.0. These support companies in identifying and implementing Industry 4.0 scenarios:
- Interoperability: The ability of machines, devices, sensors, and people to connect and communicate with each other via the Internet of Things (IoT) or the Internet of People (IoP).
- Information transparency: The ability of information systems to create a virtual copy of the physical world by enriching digital plant models with sensor data. This requires the aggregation of raw sensor data to higher-value context information.
- Technical assistance: First, the ability of assistance systems to support humans by aggregating and visualizing information comprehensively for making informed decisions and solving urgent problems on short notice. Second, the ability of cyber physical systems to physically support humans by conducting a range of tasks that are unpleasant, too exhausting, or unsafe for their human co-workers.
- Decentralised decisions: The ability of cyber physical systems to make decisions on their own and to perform their tasks as autonomously as possible. Only in the case of exceptions, interferences, or conflicting goals, are tasks delegated to a higher level.`
The differing opinions about Industry 4.0 take a different trajectory altogether when the meaninglessness of it is pointed out. When the World Economic Forum (WEF) was gushing over Industry 4.0 at Davos in January 2016, Elizabeth Garbee a PhD student at the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University, pointed out that this term itself was nothing new.
Garbee pointed out that the term first came into popular use in 1940 in a document titled “America’s Last Chance” by Albert Carr, to usher in “modern communications, merely as an additional manifestation of the industrial revolution—as the beginnings of a new phase, a fourth industrial revolution.” He played on the ubiquitous fear of the American people that their way of democratic life was in danger, and hence advocated a technological revolution as the solution. Every decade or so, this term kept creeping into popular discourse every time there was something new to talk about--from atomic energy in 1948 to electronics in the 1950s to the computers of the 1970s. American economist Walt Rostow in 1984 described the information revolution as the fourth industrial revolution.
The most recent of the invocations of the term, which has led to it becoming such a buzzword of late, is the German government’s Industrie 4.0 initiative of 2011, followed by the report of two years later.
But if one were to disregard the etymological controversies for a moment, it seems this time that the term is here to stay. It is for this reason that there is a discourse around the subject, and different stakeholders have been examining it from their respective prisms, sustainability being one of them.
Among those calling for a new way of looking at things has been London-based multinational professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) which, just ahead of a G20 summit in 2017, published a paper titled Enabling a sustainable Fourth Industrial Revolution: How G20 countries can create the conditions for emerging technologies to benefit people and the planet. PwC can be credited with injecting the sustainability angle into the Industry 4.0 debate.
The paper urged, “For governments and policymakers, it is vital that the enabling mechanisms are put in place for the 4IR to be a sustainable revolution. The innovations and economic value unlocked by the 4IR must maximise positive social and environmental impacts, and avoid exacerbating today’s most pressing challenges. The governance challenge is even greater than in previous industrial revolutions due to the complexity, pace, and global and sectoral breadth of change. Zero-cost digital distribution today enables products and services to penetrate the mainstream and ‘go global’ in a matter of months, with policy and regulation often struggling to keep up.
“For the 4IR to be the first sustainable industrial revolution, governments and regulators will need to adapt quickly with the rapidly evolving 4IR landscape and provide the enabling environment, safeguards, investment and oversight to guide the future that is being built. Support and partnerships will be needed to unlock and scale innovation on emerging—and potentially game-changing—technologies and solutions for people and the planet. And foresight, public policies and technological governance will be needed to avoid or minimise unintended consequences and protect public interests.”
The PwC call should be summing it up: the way to Industry 4.0 will have to take the sustainability route.
