Project report : Sustainability assessment of the Dutch high-tech industry 2023

Sustainability embodies the concept of responsible management and care of the planet's resources and the well-being of both current and future generations. In line with the European Green Deal (EGD), the high-tech industry wants to be climate-neutral by 2050 and is actively engaged in exploring methods to integrate sustainability into its product development processes. While all companies have set up sustainability goals and provide ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) reports at the corporate level, as required by regulations, there is a need to translate these corporate goals into actionable insights for architects and product designers. In this report, the ESI sustainability study team presents the assessment of the status and practices of integrating sustainability within the TNO-ESI ecosystem of high-tech industries. The state-of-the-art assessment was based on a comprehensive review of the literature and web resources. At the same time, insights into the state of the practice were obtained through interviews and workshops involving TNO-ESI's Industrial and Academic Partners network. This document does not aim to be exhaustive or complete. Its purpose is to initiate building expertise toward understanding and actuating sustainability in complex system design and industrial environments. In the assessment, TNO-ESI focused on adding the broader concepts of sustainability to the System Architecting domain, connecting business value, technical explorations, and organizational challenges. The vision is to have sustainability embedded in the Systems Architects' reasoning toolbox. For the (near) future, Design Space Exploration, balancing Product Qualities and decision-making processes must include sustainability aspects. TNO-ESI has extensive Systems Architecting expertise and can show leadership by providing directions, means, and methods for taking the next steps. Since the sustainability domain is massive, value has to be found in taking the right steps at the right moment and providing noticeable benefits in the short term while focusing on long-term objectives. We realize that this may result in a tailor-made approach since all companies differ in markets, products, culture, and organization, bringing all BAPO (Business, Architecting, Processes, Organization) aspects into practice. Acknowledgment: The research is carried out as part of the ESI Sustainability Study program under the responsibility of TNO-ESI with the industrial and academic partners. The Sustainability Study research is supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research TNO. The research activities of the CANVAS project are supported by the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate, and TKI-HTSM.