Build the 2030 sustainability roadmap for a single-phase Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS)

Our client committed to reduce its environmental impact, especially by reducing its direct and indirect greenhouse gas emission during production and by enabling its customer to save energy. To reach its objectives, he wants to initiate a long-term thinking to strengthen its eco-design initiatives.

IAC Partners was mandated to identify the major upcoming technological developments & breakthroughs on the 4 main categories involved in the single-phase UPS lines, and build short-, mid- and long-term design scenarios aiming at minimizing the product’s environmental footprint while maintaining their competitiveness.

IAC conducted a 3-step approach to build the roadmap:

• We assessed the environmental impact of each commodity with our smart LCA methodology to consolidate the baseline and identify the main drivers of greenhouse gas emission within each category.
• We screened recent & upcoming innovations as well as ongoing research for the different categories in multiple industries, conducting interviews and workshops with experts, and tearing down several UPS devices. The interviews and workshops provided qualitative insights to evaluate the applicability regarding UPS and the technical readiness level (TRL) of each opportunity.
• We finally built the optimal short-, mid- and long-term designs and assessed the greenhouse gas emissions during the 5 stages of product life, the cost of the optimized device as well as the effort for implementation.

IAC proposed a roadmap over the next 10 years enabling the reduction of CO₂ footprint by:

• 70% on extraction / manufacturing / end of Life
• 80% on distribution
• 4% on use and maintenance

The proposed design changes also lead to 14% cost reductions on the long-term.

We documented all ideas with detailed calculations of CO₂ emissions and cost impacts, enriched with a mid-term action plan outlining the risk, success opportunities, key players and partners to involve in the initiative.