Sustainability is not only a critical business opportunity for DHI, but also deeply rooted in our company purpose and in our business. Together with our clients and partners, our impact is predominant on three different levels:
Conserving and enhancing ecosystems – We help to protect the natural world and its biodiversity through the application of predictive tools and practical applications. Our modelling software suite in combination with our advisory services is equipped to support science-based decisions on the management, conservation and restoration of nature
Tackling climate change and building resilience – We enable our clients to reduce their climate impact through our products and services, supporting climate adaptation and focusing on resiliency for water and environment, e.g., in offshore wind farms projects. Furthermore, we collaborate and co-create with partners in engineering, insurance and economics to understand vulnerabilities and impacts
Driving outcomes – We help decision-makers target at-risk areas for intervention, influence strategy or permitting processes and developing accurate predictive models. Our partnerships across sectors, from UN agencies to international donors and academic institutions, drive innovations, extend our reach and allow us to positively influence developments around the globe
Our key targets and commitments towards 2025 include:
Mapping of how DHI’s products and services contribute to the SDGs
Implementing sustainability as a key driver in our technology and innovation investments
Innovating and connecting to develop new ways to support our clients’ sustainability agendas
From methodology to practice
At solution level, we embody our strategic vision for sustainability through our collaborations with clients and partners. This encompasses i) identifying, assessing and showcasing the tangible sustainability impact that our products enable when we carry out projects with clients and ii) identifying and developing sustainability-driven solutions.
In this context, sustainability assessment is a valuable supporting tool that can help us make progress towards these two interconnected objectives.
Based on this motivation, DHI’s Innovation Lab conducted an explorative project in 2023, centred on exploring the role of sustainability assessment within DHI and its potential applications. Specifically, the project chose Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and carbon footprint accounting as the sustainability assessment approaches to explore in depth. While there are no actual impact quantifications yet, the project has highlighted perspectives for doing this. This involves understanding the sustainability priorities specific to each industry as well as the terminology, methods and strategies our clients are employing in relation to sustainability. The project has outlined a structured approach to gather this information.
One example of how DHI has started to work with carbon footprint reporting is from the wastewater segment under the Water in Cities business unit. In TwinPlant, a digital twin solution designed for wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), DHI has integrated a standardised methodology into the software to measure clients’ greenhouse gas emissions from wastewater treatment operations, including scope 1, scope 2 and scope 3 emission reporting.
The recently introduced Optimised Plant module is part of TwinPlant. This module addresses the intricacies of aeration systems within wastewater treatment plants, offering operators data-backed advice on optimal settings to minimise energy consumption and reduce the carbon footprint. Previous research from DHI suggests that energy optimisation of WWTPs can reduce the total CO2e emissions from the global wastewater treatment sector by up to 20%, while providing cost savings of EUR 24 billion per year. The aeration process can account for up to 60% of energy consumption in wastewater treatment, so major reductions can be achieved by improving the aeration process alone. One installation of Optimised Plant could potentially reduce emissions of 50-100 t CO2e per year for a medium-sized WWTP.
Sustainability focus in investments
To support our efforts in enabling our clients and partners to overcome their water-related challenges and achieve their sustainability agendas, and based on a previous idea generation, in 2023 we defined a top-20 list of the most important client challenges that DHI should look to solve with innovations. The top-20 list is based on the extensive market outreach performed during 2023, adding to the already massive knowledge about our clients’ most pressing challenges. Work will continue on identifying opportunities to leverage existing solutions and exploring the feasibility and viability of new solutions targeting the top-20 client challenges. DHI conducted different types of research activities to discover possible new solutions that address the identified challenges.