Energy company, Eni, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Google Cloud have announced that they are building a new open digital platform supporting sustainability in the industrial supply chain.
Starting from the energy world, the platform will progressively extend to all industrial sectors. The platform will allow all players in the energy sector, throughout the value chain, to share their experiences in sustainability, growth plans, and information in compliance with the existing regulations.
According to Eni, the idea for the platform stems from the common interest of the three companies to support a path of energy transition and sustainability in the industrial sectors.
Each of the partners will bring its unique expertise to help develop a collaborative and non-competitive culture to establish better understanding and best practice sharing around sustainability throughout the industrial chain.
Eni will contribute its industrial skills, the quality of its supply chain and its strategic commitment to a fair and sustainable energy transition.
BCG will bring its strategic angle on ESG objectives, a valuation and growth model and the value proposition for the platform.
Whilst Google Cloud will contribute its excellent competency in cloud computing, big data, and artificial intelligence.
Open-es will allow all suppliers involved in the energy transition to make the most of their experience and best practices in sustainability, sharing them with the participating companies and grasping new opportunities for business and value creation.
Open-es will be open to all players in the energy sector and in industrial supply chain, from large groups, to small and medium businesses, to start-ups and any service providers interested in accelerating the energy transition.
Every participating company will be able to interact on the platform both as a supplier and as a customer, depending on the role they play in the industrial chain, enabling the entire ecosystem and creating a space for real collaboration and growth.
It will be free and independent, with initial development powered by Eni.
It will be made available to every company, with certification models developed by independent bodies.
Each company will be able to make its information and experience available in a controlled and secure way, and only grant access to authorised resources.
The platform will also take a concrete approach with an industrial slant and the following distinctive features:
- Information sharing: the platform aims to be a single point for sharing information on sustainability, and a go-to source for benchmarks and statistics. This information will also be certified through mechanisms accepted by the network. A simple model, with an incremental approach, will be used to evaluate suppliers’ sustainability performance and, following a gap analysis, a development plan will be suggested for each participant.
- Supply chain and ecosystem mapping: information will be accessible and visible at all levels of the supply chain. Mapping the supply chain is one of the platform’s key objectives. It will also encourage circular economy principles and mechanisms, taking into account that the new consumption models pass through a review of the supply chain. It will therefore involve all levels of the supply chain and provide development services for suppliers, which helps the country’s economy.
- Openness and integrability: the platform will be open to anyone who wants to help make the supply chain more sustainable (service providers, financial institutions, training consultants, players of the circular economy and so on), with the objective of helping companies fill their sustainability gaps.
- Incentive mechanisms: finally, easy to use collaboration tools and gamification techniques will be used to help identify opportunities for partnerships and foster an exchange of best practices on sustainability. Methods specific to social networks will also be used such as evaluations and interactions between participants.
