Resource wise: Data‑driven energy efficiency strategies
Posted: September 22, 2025
Despite growing commitments from the private sector and policymakers, most projections show global emissions remaining flat or rising for the rest of this decade, with meaningful declines not expected until the 2030s. And even then, by 2050, emissions are still forecast to remain well above the levels needed to meet our 1.5°C target. To change that trajectory, industry will need to lead the way.[1]
As it stands today, industry is responsible for about 38% of global final energy consumption, and 24% of global carbon emissions.[2] These figures underscore the responsibility that industry bears, but they also underscore the opportunity that industry has to make an outsized, meaningful impact. And fortunately, incentives continue to pull sustainability goals and financial performance into closer alignment. These incentives extend beyond just direct cost savings. In an uncertain age, optimized energy efficiency is a strategic advantage that helps shield industrial operations from the hazards of uncertainty:
- Mitigate the impact of supply disruptions
Whether from geopolitical shocks or extreme weather, energy efficiency helps industrial organizations blunt the impact of price swings and supply disruptions.
- Meet stakeholder demands
Cutting energy use makes it easier to hit tightening compliance targets, strengthen ESG scores, and win favor with sustainability-minded customers.
- Boost operational resilience
In addition to using less energy, more efficient assets run smoother and last longer, reducing unplanned downtime and keeping production steady even when the grid may not be.
This is the third entry in our blog series Resource wise. Read on to hear the story of how three different companies, from three different industrial sectors, used AVEVA solutions to turn sustainability goals into better business outcomes.
Henkel: Building energy efficiency on a scalable digital backbone
To reduce costs, resource consumption, and drive sustainable innovation, Henkel set itself an ambitious goal: by 2030, it plans to be three times more efficient. A goal of that magnitude requires more than minor strategy adjustments. It demands a brand new approach to managing energy efficiency. That’s why the Germany-based leader of fast-moving consumer goods used a suite of AVEVA software solutions to harmonize and optimize operations at the laundry and homecare part of its business with a flexible, plant-agnostic digital backbone.
This digital backbone—built on AVEVA™ System Platform, AVEVA™ Historian, and AVEVA™ Manufacturing Execution System—consolidates data from thousands of physical and virtual sensors, measuring everything from electricity and fossil fuel consumption, to compressed air, steam, water, and sewage. In all, it adds up to millions of captured data points a day, all of it stored in one, centrally accessible hub of truth. From the shopfloor to the boardroom, users across the enterprise can now easily access and analyze contextualized data, and quickly identify opportunities to add deeper value to its operations.
With its new system in place, Henkel has reduced year-on-year energy consumption by as much as 16% at some sites, which translates into an annual savings of around €8M. Those savings stack up quickly. After the first four years of deployment, Henkel achieved full payback on the project. Just four more years later, it quadrupled its ROI.
CBMM: Energy efficiency through standardization and automation
Without standardization, energy-intensive refining processes can result in wasted energy, scrapped product, or even catastrophic failures. For CBMM, the world’s largest provider of niobium, minimizing those risks was central to both its sustainability and business outcomes. That’s why, in collaboration with systems integrator IHM Stefanini, CBMM transformed its existing AVEVA investments, including AVEVA™ PI System™, AVEVA™ Production Management, and AVEVA™ InTouch HMI, into a standardized, automated power curve system to control and optimize furnace operations.
Before implementing its new system, CBMM operators had no set pattern to tell them exactly how much power to apply to the furnace. Instead, they relied on experience, intuition, and guesswork. Now, with its new system in place, CBMM can standardize and implement power curves while also executing, controlling, monitoring, and automating furnace operations.
Across CBMM’s three specialized electrical arc furnaces, the savings added up quickly. Furnaces #1 and #2 each saw energy reductions of about 1MWh per run, while furnace #3 saw a 3.11MWh reduction. In all, these efficiency improvements save CBMM about $140,000 annually. By removing the guesswork from furnace operations, the new system not only reduces energy consumption but also helps minimize operator safety risks.
Namchi smart city: Integrating IoT with real-time operations for city-wide savings
At a city-wide scale, gains in energy efficiency add up to very big savings. Take, for example, Namchi, in Sikkim, India. Civic leaders faced the dual challenge of managing limited resources and improving residents’ quality of life under India’s smart cities initiative. To achieve both goals, the city used AVEVA™ Unified Operations Center to create its cutting-edge Integrated Cross-city Command Centre (ICCC).
Built on a system-of-systems approach, Namchi’s ICCC consolidates a vast array of process and non-process information sources, and civic and field application inputs (including smart street lighting, traffic control, pollution monitoring, surveillance, and public alert systems) into a single, real-time view of all the city’s goings-on. From this one, centralized vantage point, the city can enhance cross-departmental coordination, accelerate response times, and take a holistic, bird’s eye view of its energy and resource efficiency.
The project’s success demonstrates once again that energy efficiency and resilience go hand in hand. After deployment, the ICCC helped Namchi reduce energy consumption by a staggering 20%. At the same time, the city also improved operational efficiency by 40%. Multiple-level KPIs, notifications, and incident management are integrated directly into workflows, helping maintenance teams predict and prevent asset failures, and mitigate potential risks to the community.
Powering the future with data-driven efficiency
Energy efficiency isn’t easy, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach, but neither is it negotiable from a business or operational perspective. Companies that fail to use energy efficiently will be, sooner or later, outcompeted by those that do. It’s expensive to be inefficient. And that’s good news for our shared future. The responsible thing to do happens to be the smart thing to do.
[1] McKinsey & Company. (2024, September). Global Energy Perspective 2024. Global Energy & Materials Practice. https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/energy%20and%20materials/our%20insights/global%20energy%20perspective%202024/global-energy-perspective-2024.pdf
[2] International Energy Agency. (2017). Digitalisation and Energy. IEA. https://www.iea.org/reports/digitalisation-and-energy
