How the Internet of Things is leading the way in business and sustainability

What is the Internet of Things? 

From turning on your lights at home with your voice, to the hospital tracking your heart monitor in real-time, to working in an office that can automatically predict what heating, ventilation and air conditioning is needed based on how many people are in a conference room, the Internet of Things (IoT) is everywhere in our lives.

IoT devices are physical objects that are embedded with sensors and sometimes actuators. IoT technologies connect physical objects to wired or wireless networks to monitor or control an environment.

What’s interesting is not only how IoT is being used in our everyday lives, but how it is leading the way in business and sustainability. It does this by combining smart technologies and innovative thinking to create an optimised future.

What this means is that businesses can using a range of technologies to connect the digital and physical worlds to make informed decisions about how they reduce their impact on people and the planet. This includes how they manage their water and waste.

Interestingly, there are already many more connected devices in the world than people. According to the World Economic Forum’s State of the Connected World report, it is predicted that by 2025, 41.6 billion devices will be capturing data on how we live, work and move through our cities. Indeed, many organisations are already using IoT for fleet management.

And at Method, we use IoT solutions for waste. Method InSight is a connected system that uses sensors that deliver bin-by-bin data in near-real-time. This waste management platform helps organisations to learn from their smart bins - from how they are consuming waste at the individual, site and organisational level to which bins the cleaners need to empty and when.

How the Internet of Things is changing sustainability 

Method InSight and its unique waste data analysis is just one example of how the power of machine learning can be harnessed for the health of people and the planet.

By using everything from waste data analytics to energy data analysis, IoT is maximising the way we live, meaning humans, organisations and even animals get to enjoy the benefits that come with smarter surroundings.

Think about an office that uses smart climate control, lighting and other utilities. With these services connected through IoT technologies, there is no longer a need for humans to try to create energy efficiencies in the space. Instead, sensors communicate via the cloud to control heating, ventilation, air conditioning and even how much fresh air is pumped in.

This leads to employees working in a healthy, safer, more energy efficient environment. It also helps organisations to achieve their sustainability certifications. Meanwhile, utilising centralised reporting of data and statuses of vehicles can help businesses cut fuel bills and make fewer trips.

Internet of Things for energy efficiency

One company that is well-known for using IoT solutions for energy efficiency is Belgium company Schréder. For over a decade, the company has been at the forefront of conserving energy and reducing CO2 emissions through monitoring, controlling, metering and managing outdoor lighting in cities all over Europe. They do this with an IoT solution called Owlet Nightshift. This helps cities to retrofit old lighting infrastructures with smart lanterns. These long-lasting intelligent technologies deliver many benefits from energy efficiency to making public spaces safer.

The money saved on energy can then be reinvested into other sustainable initiatives, such as creating more cycleways, metering and managing outdoor lighting in cities all over Europe. They do this with an IoT solution called Owlet Nightshift that helps cities retrofit old lighting infrastructures with smart lanterns. These long-lasting intelligent technologies deliver many benefits from energy efficiency to making public spaces safer.

Recently, smart lanterns were fitted to a UNESCO heritage site in Bruges and this cut energy costs by 60%. The money saved on energy can then be reinvested into other sustainable initiatives, such as creating more cycleways.

Better water conservation with IoT

Another interesting way IoT is being used to transform business and sustainability is in the conservation of water. The last 100 years have seen us develop a thirst with water usage drastically increasing. Research into how IoT technologies can help conserve water shows that by 2030, nearly 230 billion cubic meters of water will be conserved through IoT devices.

In the UK, a Surrey based business called AquamatiX has designed IoT technology specifically for the conservation and management of water and wastewater. Their application, called WaterworX, is a real-time network management system. It is used by councils to monitor the flow of water and wastewater so that every stage of the process from source-to-tap and drain-to-river can be tracked.

Battery-powered sensors also help these organisations monitor river and canal levels in the UK to predict both instances of flood and drought and make the right water management decisions, based on the data. The company also provide IoT technologies in the form of soil moisture sensors to farmers. These can be used to apply the correct amount of water to increase plant yields but not saturate the soil.

Internet of Things to reduce waste

At Method, we’ve developed an IoT solution for waste management. Method InSight gives businesses the bin-by-bin data to effectively manage their waste and transform their organisation to being more sustainable.

We use precision, battery-powered sensors that report data each hour and send it to the InSight analytics portal over a secure cellular network. This provides a detailed overview of an organisation’s waste in near-real-time.

But is the Internet of Things a truly sustainable solution? 

From a sustainability perspective, it is important to recognise that there is some e-waste that is created by the development of the small sensor devices used in IoT technologies. It is something that, in our business, we are acutely aware of and always on the search for how to improve the life cycle of battery sensors. There is also a lot of work being done globally to learn how to better recycle batteries and e-waste and we are staying up to date with these trends.

And thanks to computers and chips becoming much smaller over time, such developments mean less is needed to provide a powerful system. In part, this is because of the evolution of cloud computing. Connecting Method InSight to the cloud allows us to scale our platform so we can support organisations grow from 1,000 bins to 100,000 bins - all recording bin-by-bin data every hour. This is because cloud computing provides fast, efficient data processing that doesn’t require a lot of hardware.

Along with the way it utilises the cloud, Method InSight is an IoT technology that is world leading because it gives organisations practical, near-real-time knowledge and waste data that is actionable. With beautiful reports, it makes it easier to meet waste reporting and reduction goals, gamify waste cuts, drive climate action and meet emissions disclosure requirements with confidence.