Revolutionizing Energy Consumption: How Omnisumers Are Leading the Way

By the 2030s, a new type of energy customer is sweeping across Western Europe: the active omnisumer. The omnisumer is defined as a person or business who participates in a dynamic energy ecosystem across various solutions, products and providers. Historically, the relationship between energy provider and consumer was passive, disengaged and one-way. Energy was a commodity, delivered to consumers from unknown, high-carbon sources with prices dictated by set tariffs. In the 2030s, the energy ecosystem is transformed. Growing concern around energy consumption and its impact, both financial and environmental, led to consumers demanding control. Energy providers had to fundamentally reshape their relationship with customers.

The top-down power dynamic has been replaced by a more equal, choice-based relationship. Energy providers must be responsive to a paradigm where the majority of consumers are omnisumers: aware of their personal energy footprint and taking active action to manage it within a dynamic, diverse ecosystem. In the 2030’s blockchain-enabled, highly fragmented marketplace it’s not enough to simply sell new units of energy. Energy is no longer a commodity but a service. A highly personalized service that deeply understands its customers, engages with their lifestyle and needs, and enables them to easily exchange value and make informed decisions. To achieve this, energy companies have built complex partnership ecosystems with technology companies, automotive manufacturers and power generators – all geared to empower the omnisumer. Simplicity and control are at the heart of the omnisumer’s behavior and underpin the three key themes which have enabled the omnisumer’s rise: more choice, digitization, and self-generation.

My energy, my way

Being an omnisumer is not simply about choosing to use less energy, it’s about choosing which energy you want to use. As self-generation technologies and micro-grids have become more available – increasingly democratized due to government schemes and financing options – people can choose between the national grid or their own home to avoid spikes and congestion. As energy has moved from commodity to service, the market has become segmented by price preference. Some consumers still view energy as a commodity, wanting the cheapest available regardless of its source, but desire the extra flexibility to help them save money. Others want maximum comfort with minimum trouble – they are motivated less by the environmental impact, more by the advancements in digital apps and tech and are willing to pay  a premium for a high-end service. Enabled by blockchain technology, energy becomes highly traceable. Consumers track the energy they use from its source, empowering them to care more deeply about its origin. Local energy producers build meaningful relationships with their customers, sharing news, photos and updates, to keep them engaged and loyal; increasingly more people have shares in local energy production, making them both customer and investor. By embracing the shift to localized, distributed energy, utilities companies embed themselves in communities’ and individuals’ wider daily lives. Every omnisumer has a different relationship with energy built on a unique, diverse ecosystem of providers and products. But the crux of being an omnisumer is universal: making active choices to ensure they get the energy they want, the way they want it.

A digitized, tailored industry

Digitization has transformed the world of energy. It’s enabled the energy industry to become more connected and intelligent. Smart meters offer omnisumers access to rich data and actionable insights about their energy habits. Managed through easily navigable AI-powered mobile apps, consumers monitor connected appliances in real-time. From energy insights such as peer-to-peer and carbon footprint recommendations, to appliance health checks and safety alerts. Energy providers leverage this influx of data to deliver highly tailored products and services at an industrial scale. From learning the customer’s patterns of behaviors, energy companies optimize their offering to each individual. Leading energy providers act as the single broker for their customers’ entire energy ecosystem, from providing e-mobility services to leasing domestic renewable energy technologies. Partnerships with other service providers, such as EV charging stations, build a holistic interconnected offering that serves every need.

Digitization also helps the omnisumers of the 2030s optimize their energy costs by making it easy to get closer to nature. AI software tracks the ebbs and flows of renewable energy output and advises the consumer via their mobile app when to use high-energy appliances, such as charging their EV or using the washing machine at night when energy costs are lower. Time-of-use, dynamic tariffs also notify consumers of negative price plunges, enabling them to be paid to use electricity when demand is low, or the grid is oversupplied by renewable power. If they have personal batteries, it automatically optimizes the charging and usage of this battery power based not only on the output variation but on the consumer’s lifestyle. The software can intimately learn the consumer’s habits and routines and adapt their energy consumption accordingly, for example if they regularly need to drive at nighttime and therefore can’t charge overnight. Thanks to digitization and intuitive UX, omnisumers don’t need to have in-depth knowledge of energy in order to have an active relationship with it. Digital technologies level the playing field for everyone and makes it easy to consume energy in a more considered, efficient and ultimately cheaper way. Energy service providers have the opportunity to differentiate themselves from the competition by optimizing an individual’s energy needs and providing them with the best algorithms and offers aligned with their consumption habits.

Powering independence with self-consumption

For many, being an omnisumer revolves around reduced costs. They want insight and control over what they’re spending and how. But as technologies such as battery storage and electric vehicles become more ubiquitous and therefore more affordable, and as the energy conversation continues to permeate the mainstream, more and more consumers are investing in self-generation. 100 million households around the world rely on solar PV. 65% of Western Europe’s car sales in 2030 are battery electric vehicles. The shift to renewable energy has heightened its localism. Local government plays a key role in renewable generation as planning authorities, as well as promoting self-generation technologies via subsidies. Omnisumers may choose to grid-share and be part of a local community collective of domestic solar installations and batteries. By the 2030s, there will be energy services built into new multiple occupancy developments, as well as community-based energy storage solutions such as batteries that serve an entire village. Alternatively, omnisumers may keep a private closed circuit of energy, any surplus of which their energy provider helps them sell back to the grid at the best rates. Some consumers are becoming ever more independent prosumers; they’ve transitioned from simply being a buyer to becoming an interwoven player in the energy ecosystem. The opportunity for energy providers lies in enabling this transition for all by successfully simplifying the complexity and making consumers feel rewarded and engaged in their energy interactions.

Lighting the way for the omnisumer

The rise of the omnisumer sparks deeper, active customer relationships that facilitate grid management and open up new commercial models and social valorization. These models create greater value connections and avoid commoditization – a total transformation of the role of energy companies in the eyes of the customer. With increased control comes trust, loyalty and empowerment. The omnisumer is motivated not only by cost, but by a sense of purpose. Their relationship with energy is governed by simple yet sophisticated end-to-end solution s that work to help them save money, time and the planet simultaneously. They can easily choose and control the energy they want, the way they want it – all enabled by the new energy ecosystem and its innovative technologies.

In recent years, sustainability has moved from a premium offering for conscientious customers, to an essential element of all packaging. Consumers will increasingly pay more for products with sustainable packaging, regulations on packaging sustainability are likely to become stricter, and of course, it is the right thing to do for the environment. Promisingly, most companies seem to agree, with industry giants such as Unilever and P&G making bold commitments on sustainable packaging in recent years.

The opportunities and challenges of sustainable packaging

Sustainable packaging means reducing the environmental impact of the packaging. This can come from new materials which are recycled, recyclable, or biodegradable. Last year’s Packaging Sustainability Awards saw gongs go to cardboard made from leftover barley straw, mono-material plastics which improve recyclability, and water-based inks.

It can also come from redesigning packaging to reduce materials – Pilgrim’s Choice Cheddar made a big deal of its 40% reduction in packaging by wrapping its cheese snuggly, rather than in a loose bag.

And the latest trend is to design packaging to be continuously reusable and refillable, eliminating (most) waste altogether.

Although sustainable packaging is a long run trend, there is still plenty of room for improvement, with many goods still using unsustainable packaging, and even the leaders having room to improve through new packaging innovations.

But nothing is ever simple. Packaging already constitutes around 9% of the product’s total cost.  Reducing packaging can save money, but replacing it with sustainable alternatives will likely add costs, at least in the short term.

Sustainable packaging may also come with design trade-offs. New materials, fewer layers, and sustainable inks may not offer the same opportunities for bold colours and 3D shapes as plastics and synthetic dyes.

But problems can be opportunities. Sustainable packaging presents an opportunity to differentiate and win new customers, in a world where company ethics matter more than brand loyalty. And new material innovations create new aesthetics, that may come to be seen as more modern than today’s in-your-face brands.

Nonetheless, business is business, and cost is still a big customer concern. So all of this needs to be done whilst keeping cost to a minimum. How do we do that?

Embedding sustainability into packaging design and engineering

CPG companies need to embed sustainability in their packaging development process, whilst also ensuring it can be delivered at scale and cost-effectively. That means adopting a number of processes and skills.

It needs design and simulation to model new sustainable packaging designs, which balance sustainability with other factors such as visual appeal, transportation, protective value, manufacturing costs, and so on. When moving to whole new types of packaging, this is an essential first step to derisk decisions.

Then it needs expertise in material selection, synthesis and formulation to choose or create the optimal packaging and ink materials for your product’s needs. And in designing the optimal manufacturing processes to produce it at scale.

All of this can be optimised through computer-aided engineering, simulation, and analysis. Such digital tools help speed innovation, but cannot provide all the answers, so physical testing is also critical throughout the development process to test products, validate designs and feed back into simulations.

All materials have some environmental footprint, so the packaging must also minimise lifetime impact. That means modelling what its production and use looks like in the real world, understanding the resources required to produce it at scale, the manufacturing processes, and the transport implications. Sometimes a piece of packaging that looks sustainable in the lab, suddenly looks less sustainable when you see how many can fit in a truck, or where critical raw materials come from. Understanding these real-world impacts allows you to tweak designs to ensure the right balance of both lifetime sustainability and cost.

Finally, a relatively new area of sustainable packaging is reuse. Not all packaging will take this route, but it is increasingly popular to design packaging that is intended to be refilled, either by the product’s manufacturer, or by the user at dedicated refill stations. Companies pursuing this approach need to setup processes for managing their recirculating packaging, such as trackable containers, asset management systems, and analytics.

Conclusion

Sustainable packaging is not a one-off project. Things change. Today’s cutting-edge sustainability may look dated in five years. Sustainability must become deeply embedded within ongoing innovation. That means embracing all of the above as part of a continuous and agile development process. It is vital to take this end-to-end approach to enable ongoing sustainable packaging innovation whilst keeping cost manageable.

How Capgemini can help

Our end-to-end packaging approach creates a seamless experience for clients. Our team combines packaging design, sustainable materials development, optimization of primary, secondary and tertiary packaging levels and different packaging types (eg. steel, plastic, cardboard, wood, foam), and technological and engineering expertise. We consider all elements of packaging to ensure packaging is optimized for sustainability, whilst also protecting the product during shipping and handling, and enhancing its appeal and value.

In recent years, the financial services sector has seen an increase in the pace of digitization. This is a reaction to the demands of the omnichannel customer and the need to compete with FinTech challengers whilst maintaining a cost discipline. Cloud transformation has been a key pillar of digitization for many of these organizations, leading to a mix of hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

Throughout the past few years, increased cost consciousness amongst financial services companies and a lower appetite for risk have meant that organizations are reducing their technology investments and reprioritizing their technology portfolio. It is in this climate that the cost of cloud computing has taken a number of organizations by surprise. As a result, many CIOs, COOs, and CFOs are now turning to FinOps to help reduce the cost of their cloud spends. A recent survey indicated 31% organizations have a cloud spend over $12 million per annum.^[1] FinOps is an operational framework as well as a shift in both culture and mindset, enabling organizations to maximize the value of cloud investments.^[2] However, when FinOps is not approached strategically, it fails to deliver sustainable cost and business benefits that CXOs need now more than ever. In this blog, our Capgemini Cloud Advisory and FinOps experts share some lessons learned from their experience with FinOps implementation and share practical solutions for FS CIOs, COOs, and CFOs to consider in their FinOps transformation journey.

What is the business case for FinOps?

Ewan MacLeod, who has been part of several FinOps setups with financial services clients, describes how enterprises often start their journey to cloud computing by assuming that replicating their IT environment in the cloud will result in cost savings.

“Most organizations will overspend on cloud solutions if they do not adopt the right FinOps thinking right from the start. Early adoption is key to the business sustainability of a cloud-based organization.”

Vikram Rajan, VP at Capgemini for Cloud Advisory Services for financial services organizations, agrees:

“Even if an organization does not have a significant cloud spend today, they should establish the FinOps thinking early on. This is to ensure that teams are proactively making cost-conscious decisions and do need to go into fire-fighting mode against wasted cloud spend.”

Our experts unanimously challenge the myth that FinOps is mainly utilized to achieve cost reductions.

Elaborating on the above $10 per customer example, Ewan believes the benefits of FinOps for onboarding are self-evident:

“When you can onboard 1,000 customers quicker due to being on the cloud, you can trace the value of a $10,000 spend and justify the cost.”

FinOps thereby facilitates greater flexibility and agility for investments in cloud computing. It enables organizations to think in terms of how to be flexible over how they spend, how and when they should shut resources down, how long they need an environment for, and what the working hours for that environment should be.

In Vikram’s experience, FinOps can prove pivotal for high-value product lines:

“Where organizations have products delivering value in hundreds of millions of dollars, they are looking to improve the accuracy of forecasts and predictability of spends to manage their platform/products’ scalability.”

Lokesh Sah, a Cloud Advisory specialist at Capgemini, is also quick to point out that FinOps insights can also enable organizations to develop operational improvements, such as developing a cloud data archiving policy to manage data storage costs, which then helps with cost avoidance and improves data efficiencies.

Our experts emphasize that the business case for FinOps programs appears to be straightforward:

‘FinOps pays for itself by accelerating the business benefits, such as improved cost management, value maximization, agility, and scalability.’

Is it too late to adopt FinOps if your organization has already started its cloud transformation without it?

In a perfect world, organizations would have incorporated FinOps at the start of their cloud transformation journey, but Ewan has good news for those organizations who didn’t:

“It’s never too late. It’s like tackling your credit card spending. From the point at which you start auditing your spending, you can identify the overspending and savings and redirect them to a holiday or a car purchase or back to your cashflows. In the case of FinOps, I would say the sooner an organization adopts it in the right way, the better, but it’s never too late.”

¹ Flexera (2023) 2023 State of the Cloud Report; ² Capgemini (2023) The Rise of FinOps; ³ Sarrazin, T. (2023) The Secret to Successful FinOps

Underpinned by a global shift towards decarbonization, hydrogen is gaining significance as an energy vector, especially for high-emission sectors that do not use electricity directly. Our research (Capgemini Research Institute Report – Low-Carbon Hydrogen: A Path to a Greener Future) suggests that a majority (64%) of E&U organizations are planning to invest in low-carbon hydrogen (or green hydrogen) initiatives by 2030; and 9 in 10 plan to do so by 2050.

On average, 0.4% of total annual revenue is earmarked for low-carbon hydrogen by E&U organizations. Investments are flowing in across the hydrogen value chain – especially into the development of cost-effective production technology (52% of organizations investing), electrolyzers and, fuel cells (45%), and hydrogen infrastructure (53%) to help create alternative revenue streams and aid in decarbonization efforts.

For hydrogen production to be considered low-carbon, it must come under the EU’s proposed emissions threshold of 3.38 kg CO₂ -equivalent per kg of hydrogen 5, which is 70% lower than that of the predefined fossil fuel comparator, including transport and other nonproduction emissions.

Hydrogen adoption in the automotive industry

There is a raging discussion about hydrogen adoption in the automotive industry today. Questions start with the very generation of hydrogen (source of generation, cost of generation, energy density, transportation) to issues relating to energy transformation (electric to potential (hydrogen) to electric (FCV), loss during these conversions, etc.)

The current cost of hydrogen generation is USD0.5–USD8/kg (depending on the process) and primary sources of generation include coal (black), crude (blue), and electrolysis (green). Today, most production is the B2 (square) type, which is derived either from carbon or crude.

Currently, this type of hydrogen is generally used as a reducing agent in industrial manufacturing. Demand is limited and therefore production and associated costs remain high. Moreover, CO2 emissions per kg of hydrogen are very high and while this could probably be justified in cases calling for the specialized use of hydrogen, the story changes when it is looked at as fuel.

Coal is burned to generate methane and from there, hydrogen is generated. Alternatively, it can be the product of the fractional distillation of crude. In either case, consuming fuel to generate another fuel does little to solve the problem of CO₂ emissions. Generating emissions to create an emission-free fuel that will have no emissions defeats the entire purpose of an alternate fuel.

Thus, as an automotive fuel, only green hydrogen can be useful in reducing emissions and achieving carbon neutrality. However, this green hydrogen must be generated using electricity from alternate/renewable sources (solar, wind, hydro, biomass).

If we want hydrogen to be a viable fuel in the automobile industry, we need to ensure uninterrupted availability and extensive distribution capabilities.

But let’s first revisit the concept of energy transformation (transmutation) in an automobile. An automobile carries energy as potential energy. It moves when potential energy is transformed by combustion (gasoline/natural gas in ICE) or magnetic induction (electric charge stored in EV batteries), into kinetic energy. Thus, a good fuel carries more potential energy per kg of its weight. Let’s see where hydrogen stands in this aspect.

There are four cost-input points and emission-generation points. To make hydrogen cost-effective and usable as fuel while achieving emission neutrality, we need to analyze inputs and outputs at these four stages.

As discussed earlier, B2 (squared) type hydrogen is not viable from either a cost or an emission perspective. Truly green hydrogen, however, is another matter.

Green hydrogen is generated from hydrolysis, which requires two important components: water and electricity

• Water – There is no need to use fresh water. Recycled water, methane-rich water (sewage, industrial waste), or even seawater can be used, serving the dual purpose of procuring hydrogen and reusing water. Moreover, if seawater is used, numerous mineral bi-products are created (Na, K, etc.).

• Electricity – The idea of using electricity generated from fossil fuels (coal, gas) to create green hydrogen is pointless. Only renewable electricity (solar, wind, hydro, biomass – this one is very relevant for agrarian societies such as India, East Asia, Africa, Latin America, parts of the US, and Australia) should be used. This will increase the well-being of farmers by increasing their income while enabling the extraction of every last bit of energy from agricultural produce, thereby reducing the carbon footprint and achieving full circularity – sustainability.

For green electricity, large solar farms can be established in coastal or desert locations with high solar radiation zones and wind farms can be constructed in hilly areas. Apart from the desert, anywhere there is sun and wind, there will also be water.  Therefore, to generate green hydrogen you would just have to establish hydrolysers.  

The green hydrogen produced can be transported through pipelines and distributed just like LNG. Farmers have biomass, water, and solar panels to generate electricity; they use electricity to generate H₂ by electrolysis; they compress it in compressors that run on green electricity; and supply H₂ for transportation.

Having established that H₂ is a better fuel due to its high heating value and discussed how green hydrogen can be generated, the next question is what technology should be used to convert this hydrogen back into kinetic energy to drive automotive.

What will be the cost of such technologies and where will they be effective – i.e., the cost-benefit conundrum? Given hydrogen’s better fuel capability, it would be more effective in commercial transportation, which utilizes heavy equipment such as HCV, trains, heavy earth movers, ships etc. In this context, it would be generally safe to consider hydrogen as a replacement for diesel/CNG engines.

There are two technologies to do this:

1. Fuel cell: A fuel cell acts like an engine that converts H₂ into electricity and that electricity drives the electric motor to achieve locomotion. Fuel cell technology uses polymer and platinum, making it expensive, however, research into developing ceramic membranes is currently underway.
2. Hydrogen ICE: Internal combustion engines would be used to burn H₂ instead of gasoline or CNG and produce water vapour and NO₂ as emissions. Such engines are easy to modify and easy to operate because distribution networks are already in place in various geographies, such as India.

In conclusion, I am certain that H₂ is not far away in areas spread up to 15⁰ on either side of the equator, where green hydrogen can easily be harnessed due to favourable climatic conditions and fuel cell technology can be used to drive automotive due to prevailing economic conditions.

Data Sharing Vs. Data Spaces

For many of you, data sharing will be a familiar expression. It often gains headlines, unfortunately, when it’s nefarious, typically when companies share your personal data with third parties without your permission. But today, there is a growing trend to rediscover the authentic opportunities that come from willingly sharing data. So, why the turnaround?

The reason is simple: we now recognize the value of sharing data. Today, the challenges facing our global community are unparalleled. To overcome them, we all need to find new ways to collaborate. Organizations worldwide are now increasingly coming to the same conclusion.

Data sharing is not a new concept, though. Traditionally, every organization collaborating along a supply chain, for example, has been sharing information along the chain to streamline the manufacturing of goods. But today we aim at data sharing that is decentralized, flexible, and heavily reliant on standards and automation. We call this new environment a “data space.” In a data space, participants’ data does not need to be stored in one central location and managed by some super-powerful intermediary. Rather, it is stored and managed on the individual participants’ systems. The figure below is a high-level representation of the evolution we are observing in the data-sharing models, moving towards data spaces.

Data Spaces Gather Pace

The momentum of this trend to data space adoption was evidenced by the success of this year’s Data Spaces Symposium, a new yearly conference at which the sharpest minds in the field meet to share knowledge and discuss the paradigm shift in data sharing that is accelerating the development of collaborative data ecosystems.

Additionally, data spaces are also getting a push from regulatory bodies. The European Union’s push is particularly noteworthy. Back in 2020, its Data Strategy recognized the value data spaces can bring to the economy of its Member States. The EU has been supporting the Data Strategy through dedicated legislation (the Data Governance Act, the Data Act, and more in the pipeline…). Moreover, it continues to support progressive initiatives, such as the “Data Spaces Support Centre” (DSSC) project, of which Capgemini is a partner.

The truth is that a lot of people have been waiting a long time for this day to arrive. Certainly, I am delighted to see decades of work finally becoming a reality. As Capgemini Invent’s Lead for Collaborative Data Ecosystems, the Data Spaces Symposium was the highlight of 2023 so far.

Capgemini Invent and the DSSC

The work of my colleague, Marta was the main reason I was especially excited to attend the event. Marta Pont is one of our senior managers working for EU Institutions. Her team leads the activities within the Data Spaces Support Center aimed at evaluating the impact of data space initiatives on the European economy and society, building on the experience of Capgemini in conducting similar research and assessments. The DSSC is a research and coordination project that brings together 12 partners and aims at supporting the development of European data spaces by engaging with the data space communities and identifying and making available to them relevant resources to support interoperability. At the Symposium, Marta presented our methodology for pursuing the evaluation of data spaces that is – to the best of my knowledge – pioneering work, a first in its genre on this matter.

But why do we need such evaluations? Let’s give the floor to Marta:

“The first purpose of our evaluation is to check if data spaces are value for money, as the European Commission is investing money into their development. But the evaluation will also be a useful exercise for data spaces themselves, to see where they stand in their development, in their ability to deliver socio-economic benefits for the society, and to identify pain points or improvement areas where they can learn from peers and improve their performance in the coming years.“

In particular, the evaluation of data space performance takes into account three dimensions and various indicators that serve to understand 1) the regulatory, financial, business and societal ecosystem in which each data space operates, 2) the stage of development of data spaces, and 3) the individual outcomes that are being yielded by data spaces.

It is easy to understand why we need accurate evaluations of these innovative initiatives, but you might be wondering why Capgemini was on stage to talk about it. Marta has the answer:

“This exercise is important to Capgemini because our organization has been involved for years now in performing similar assessments as part of the European Data Portal [data.europa.eu] to measure the socioeconomic impact of open data policies and the re-use of open data in the EU. […] And, also, Capgemini Invent was running the predecessor of this project, the Support Center for Data Sharing, so this is a continuation of the work we have done thus far.”

You Can’t Manage What You Don’t Measure: Our Methodology for Data Spaces Evaluation

By the time Marta took to the stage, the Postillion Convention Centre in The Haag was filled to capacity. She was part of a six-strong panel discussing How to Bring Data Spaces to Life, which was the overarching subject of a suite of pitches showcasing the Assets and Services of the DSSC. Marta began her presentation by referring to the rationale and the scope of this evaluation exercise and the reason for the DSSC to pursue it.

She was part of a research team who back in 2017 already conducted a study for the Commission to understand the extent to which the lack of access to data hindered the European economy in terms of missed business opportunities.  The data spaces program supported by the Commission aims at addressing this gap and the evaluation conducted by the DSSC should ultimately show whether data spaces are actually successful towards this goal. In her presentation, Marta outlined the various inputs that are used in the evaluation.

These inputs feed into a five-phase process involving an analysis of the ecosystem surrounding each data space, their level of maturity, and their socioeconomic outcomes, and eventually result in three reports which will be produced at three different moments in the project’s duration, enabling a comparison of the evolution of data spaces’ performance over time. For a summary of our methodology, take a look at the graphic below:

While the European Commission aims to foster collaboration and synergies among data spaces and avoid data silos, we need to acknowledge that there are differences between data spaces in different sectors and even within them. This is due to a number of factors, such as their funding scheme (procurement vs. grants), their business rationale (commercial vs. non-commercial initiatives), or the pursuit of their individual goals. To cater for these specificities, the evaluation methodology proposed by Capgemini envisages the possibility to consider specific sectorial indicators that might be only applicable to some data spaces, allowing for a differentiated approach.

Of course, as with any innovation, the rate of adoption varies from sector to sector. But slow movers risk missing out on many opportunities and the chance to be known as a pioneer in the space. Perhaps they will see the light after our data space evaluations influence European policymaking. This is one of the key aspects of Marta’s work.

The proposed methodology has already been tested with 17 EU-supported data space initiatives, mainly through funding from the European Commission’s Digital Europe Programme (DIGITAL), and from the EU’s research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020 (currently named Horizon Europe). The first evaluation report providing information on the performance of such data space initiatives is due to be submitted to the European Commission in June and will become available over the summer on the DSSC’s website.

After the Symposium

It’s encouraging to know so many experts are actively developing data spaces. But we need to ensure we do not fall into the outmoded way of working. There has been a tendency for passionate and independent parties to work separately in silos. But as a result, they each risk developing competing standards, leaving blind spots, and causing misalignment. We must strive for open collaboration that will ensure data spaces go from strength to strength.

Within the next few years, “data space” will become a household term. We’ll all be direct or indirect participants in multiple data spaces. And soon, we will use these next-generation collaboration spaces to make unprecedented progress where it matters most.

Interested in learning more?

Visit our collaborative data ecosystems homepage for a wide variety of resources and insights.

First, let’s recap on what we mean by open data. Open data is data that anyone can access, use, and share, free of charge. The annual Open Data Maturity (ODM) report, coordinated by Capgemini on behalf of the EC and the EU Publications Office, gathers insights into the state of open data in European countries, including the 27 EU Member States. It then extrapolates open data best practices that are already being implemented and offers recommendations for the adoption of open data policies Europe-wide.

The latest report was published at a time when EU Member States were (and still are) working towards making high-value datasets publicly available by a mandated EC deadline of June 2024. High-value datasets are those deemed to have a high potential impact in areas such as the economy, society, and the environment. Of the six categories classified as high value, several pertain to the environment, notably earth observation & environment, and meteorological datasets.

Another identified high-value dataset category with environmental implications is mobility, as it can encourage a lower consumption of energy based on vehicle fuel and the switch to renewables. Here, the ODM report cites the mFUND-Project ChargePlanner in Germany that aims to develop a prototype for calculating charging recommendations for electric cars along a route and for forecasting the capacity utilization of public charging stations. For this purpose, suitable data sources are first identified and then processed or merged. The resulting data will be made available in a smartphone app that will then be expanded to include a capacity utilization forecast for charging stations.

Putting in place policy

In the latest ODM report, one of the key indicators of maturity – the policy framework – included an overview of whether the 27 EU Member States aligned the objectives of their open data policies with the six EC 2019-2024 priorities. It found that more than half of the ODM survey respondents (60%) had policies and strategies aligning with A European Green Deal.

This is important because the EC believes that a fully implemented open data policy has the potential to help governments enable more environmentally friendly cities, among other societal, economic, and environmental benefits. And from observation of litter, sea temperature and amphibian habitat data in Sweden to data on soil humidity, drinking water protection zones and yearly weather in Luxembourg, there is a wide variety of what the EC terms ‘environment’ datasets held by countries across Europe. 

However, there is still clearly a long way to go in terms of open data maturity. The ODM report reveals that, in 2022, only 8 out of the 27 EU Member States said they held data on the impact of open data on the environment and connected issues. Furthermore, the reported 60% alignment with the EC’s European Green Deal priority is substantially lower than the 84% of countries saying that their open data policies or strategies align with the ‘Europe fit for the digital age’ priority.

How is public sector environment data being used?

Nonetheless, where countries have forged ahead in this respect, the potential for using data to limit the carbon footprint of cities and other areas is clear. In assessing the environmental impact of open data maturity, the ODM report looked at several open data use cases, specifically: increasing awareness on biodiversity-related topics; enabling more environmental-friendly cities; raising awareness on climate change and connected disasters; and encouraging a lower consumption of energy based on fuel and the switch to renewables.

Among the success stories revealed in the report are:

• Latvia’s Vides SOS app allows everyone to record environmental violations, report them to the relevant authorities, and get feedback on the progress of their remediation quickly and easily.
• In Malta, the Environment and Resource Authority provides real time data regarding air quality online, which is widely reused to produce air pollution visualizations maps, air quality indexes, and street-level air quality, pollen, and wildfire intelligence.
• The Czech Republic is running a project called the National Environmental Reporting Platform that focuses on available sources of environmental open data and analyzes their impact on the social, political, and legislative requirements caused by climate and environmental changes.
• The Dutch city of The Hague is supporting the transition towards cleaner energy with the development of a Datalab, promoting data-driven working and data mindsets through data and trend analysis and risk projection, for example, and by helping to visualize the available datasets.
• Spain’s Ministry of Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge launched the Climate Change Scenario Viewer, a useful tool for viewing and downloading data related to plausible representations of future climate. The service uses data fed by specific projections from the AEMET (State Meteorological Agency) and the grid projections from the international Euro-CORDEX initiative.

A greener Europe?

What do these use cases tell us about the potential for open data to help deliver the EC’s priority of a European Green Deal? 75% of EU Member States say that they see the use of open data in their countries as having an impact on environmental issues. In three countries, ‘Environment’ is also the top category of dataset visited on the national data portal.

Looking ahead, the scope for using the increasing volume of environmental data to address climate-related issues continues to expand. Our work on the ODM report leads us to recommend that both public and private organizations should disclose environmental, social and governance related data to the wider public, so that everyone can reap benefits. This will contribute to Europe achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals and realizing the European Green Deal.

The ODM will continue to observe how European countries are measuring and monitoring their environmental impact across the four areas of: biodiversity-related topics; smart cities; awareness on climate change and related disasters; and energy. As actions towards achieving the European Green Deal mature, and countries start to publish high-value datasets (especially categories related to the environment, notably earth observation & environment, meteorological, and mobility), we expect to see an increase in the volume of data-led environmental use cases and more examples of organizations using open data for their projects and initiatives. 

Find out more about open data and how it is being used across Europe in the Open Data Maturity Report 2022.

The writing is on the wall. It is time to embrace cloud-native technologies to accelerate innovation and service. According to a recent Gartner report, cloud-native platforms will serve as the foundation for more than 95% of new digital initiatives by 2025. That figure is more than double the less than 40% share of cloud-native platforms in 2021.

But the adoption of cloud-native solutions isn’t just about the technology. It is also about new markets and business opportunities to accelerate growth by providing global trade management, faster time to market, and greater agility, flexibility, scalability, and service availability.

The infrastructure transformation from legacy to cloud-native is perceived as crucial for creating a broader, more expansive ecosystem, where technology vendors, network operators, developers, and hyper-scale cloud providers work together to launch new business opportunities and generate new revenue streams.

Today’s typical CSP cloud faces many challenges, such as more effort required to manage large monolithic virtual network functions, too many manual tasks, complexity, migration challenges, security and privacy issues, latency, vendor lock-in, etc. All of these challenges can be mitigated by transitioning to cloud-native practices.

By adopting cloud-native engineering, CSPs can leverage cloud-native services such as containerization and orchestration, micro-services architecture, server-less architecture, DevOps CI/CD, observability, analysis, and many others. In addition, the transition can increase operational efficiency by designing and developing scalable, agile, cost-effective applications and running them in dynamic environments.

To implement efficient network functions and technologies with cloud-native solutions, CSPs must be open to the cloud approach and flexible, scalable, reusable, shared cloud-native platforms that are easy to maintain, upgrade, and scale.

For an in-depth look at what telecommunications companies must do to make the cloud-native transition, download the Capgemini Cloud-Native Capgemini Engineering white paper here.

Authors:

Chhavi Chaturvedi
DevSecOps Engineer, Capgemini Engineering
Chhavi is part of the Product Services and Support team at Capgemini Engineering. She focuses on developing DevOps and AWS security solutions and delivering them to customers. Chhavi also has experience in public cloud security. She earned a master’s degree in cybersecurity from the National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, India.

Sunny Kumar
Program Manager, Senior Cloud and DevOps Architect, Capgemini Engineering
Sunny is part of the Product Services and Support team at Capgemini Engineering. He is responsible for helping customers with their cloud and DevOps transformations.