Industries with data science opportunities for creating sustainable environment

If you are a data scientist and try to find jobs using keywords like "data science and sustainability", most likely you won't find many jobs available.

A realistic robot in an empty office room at night, turning off the light switch and holding a suitcase - Created by DALLE.E 3

But just because jobs are not explicitly described as sustainability, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist. To find jobs that can help in the environment, let’s first understand what data science would mean in the context.

Sustainability is defined by the United Nations, as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” While Environmental sustainability is the ability to maintain an ecological balance in our planet’s natural environment and conserve natural resources to support the wellbeing of current and future generations.

Some important terms related are: reuse, reduce, repair, repurpose and recycle. (And some more R’s).These terms are part of circular economy, which defines a model for consumption that can protect the environment and reduce raw material dependence.

And AI can have a great contribution on finding the best solutions for these purpose. Here are some works executed by a variety of industries that contribute directly or indirectly to a circular economy:

1) Machine learning models that minimize vehicle routes to minimize fuel consumption. This use case can be applied in transportation of goods, supply chain, or transportation. In this case, any company that owns fleets of vehicles will benefit from these models.

• Industries: Construction, Public Transportation, Aerospace, Supply Chain.

 

2) Machine Learning models that forecast energy and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) usage and help to plan the optimal amount of energy, cold and heat, giving many factors, like outside temperature, amount of people in buildings and so on. Companies that manage buildings and their own

• Industries: Facility Management Companies, Manufactories, Pharma, Government, Data Centers, Large Retail Chains

 

3) Predict dynamic prices. With better prices, consumers will benefit from buying perfectly good food, but that are closer to expiration date, sales of fashion items, increase transportation in non-peak times, and offer better price during low demand on accommodation.

• Industries: Retail Chains, Electronics, Chemical, Printing and Publishing, Home goods and Furniture, Transportation, Tourism.

 

 4) AI can help the design of products that can reuse and reduce materials, like, amount of plastic for packaging. AI can also help on the design of products that will last longer.

• Industries: Manufactories, Retail, Automotive, Health and Beauty, Logistics and Shipping.

 

5) Predictive maintenance uses sensors, images and analytics to track the health of equipment and suggest their maintenance before they fail, increasing their useful life spam. These equipment could be HVAC, infrastructure, machinery, fleet of vehicles, generators, turbines.

• Industries: Manufactories, Transportation, Data Center, Facility Management, Chemicals and Petroleum, Energy (Power Generation), Aerospace, Telecommunication, Railroad

 

6) Patter recognition models using images and IoT sensors to improve waste sorting in waste processing environment, helping reduce e-waste by improving overall recycling and refurbishing rates. For example, batteries and phones.

• Industries: Waste Collection, Construction and Demolition, Composting, Recycling.

 

7) Demand forecast, by tracking inventory, AI can suggest what products will be sold, avoiding over production of products that will not be consumed. This will avoid waste and reduce size of warehouse for storage.

• Industries: Retail, Food and beverage, Pharmaceuticals, Textiles, Technology, Consumer Goods, E-commerce, Manufacturing, Electronics.

 

As can be seen above, almost every industry can make use of AI to plan better strategies to be environmentally friendly. My advise is, no matter what industry you work on, find an opportunity to work on helping everyone to become more sustainable.

Feel free to comment below or reach out to learn more or share your experience.