National Grid US is a leader in the fight against climate change with its aggressive decarbonization plan to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. “We needed to not only reduce emissions from our own operations, but also enable the decarbonization of society more broadly,” says Badar Khan, president of National Grid US. “We’re building a world that’s more sustainable for future generations, but doing it in a way that segments of society aren’t left behind.” National Grid and Oracle Utilities Opower have worked together for about 10 years, and since the start of the relationship, National Grid has saved its customers 4 terawatt hours of energy, which is equivalent to the annual output of the Hoover Dam. “As people say, the cheapest kilowatt hour is the one that you don’t consume, and the lowest emitting kilowatt hour is the one that you don’t emit,” says Khan. “Expanding our capabilities to help customers lower their consumption will continue to be a key part of achieving net-zero emissions.” – Margaret Lindquist

Companies that claim to be using ocean plastic waste to manufacture their products need to be able to ensure that the material actually is what recyclers say it is. Oceanworks, an online marketplace for recycled plastic materials and products, is coordinating with global brands to source raw materials from its global network of plastic recyclers. The company uses a track-and-trace application that runs on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. The Oceanworks application stores data about each container of recycled ocean plastic, generates certificates of authenticity for the resin content, and provides details about the material flow, such as the place where the plastic was collected, when it was recycled, and the locations of the compounders, recyclers, and manufacturers that handled it. “Without an offering like Oceanworks, brands are forced to do a lot of legwork to find and validate these materials,” says Oceanworks CEO Vanessa Coleman. Oceanworks’ customers turn the recycled material into all sorts of new products, including zippers, credit cards, fabric, buttons, and yarn. – Sasha Banks-Louie

Even before the pandemic, the mining industry had been dealing with ongoing pressures, including mining ore deposits in ever-harder-to-reach locations and myriad changes aimed at improving sustainability in their business. One consensus: The way forward is to make operations much more efficient. “A lot of the mining companies have built ‘innovation teams’ to look for ways that they can mine more efficiently and sustainably,” says Frank Hoogendoorn, chief data officer at MineSense, a Canada-based tech company that’s helping mines become more sustainable. MineSense shows operators exactly what grade of ore is in each dip of their massive shovels. Hoogendoorn’s team uses Oracle Autonomous Data Warehouse to store data for access by data scientists, and to deliver client-specific dashboards using Oracle Application Express (APEX), which is Oracle Database’s built-in, low-code development framework. This information has two powerful effects: It can help miners avoid throwing away useful ore, and if the ore grade they’re digging is lower than what they modeled, they can avoid wasting time, water, and energy trying to process it. – Jeff Erickson