JustEco – A digital tool to calculate energy consumption in engineering projects

“If you apply this sort of analysis to anything that uses power you can make a tangible change in the world” says Jonathan Greene, Digitalization Manager in Aker Solutions. 

JustEco analyses can be applied to all project phases from concept to late life. In the concept phase, the tool can influence decisions regarding the design configuration, in the execution phase it can be used to select the best vendor offers and document emissions, energy consumption and operational costs for the design. Finally in late life, the tool can be used for cost forecasting and for actively looking for better solutions for an existing design.   

Greene is one of several developers that, with a changemakers mindset, has been part of building JustEco in-house in Aker Solutions. The idea was born at a Hackathon event where young professionals can gather to collaborate and develop ideas. 

“This tool was developed to help us and our customers make the most sustainable decisions, as it can be used to calculate energy consumption and emissions on all types of equipment that use energy, by applying the tool, we can systematically reduce energy consumption, emissions and cost” says Greene.

Increasing carbon taxes 

The global trend towards decarbonization is why we see the need to measure emissions, so we can manage them efficiently.  

“The growth in the CO2 taxes will have a significant impact on the operating costs moving forward. This highlights how important it is to start doing these analyses and ensuring that our designs are sustainable and cost efficient. Furthermore, it also enables us to identify new solutions that become cost efficient due to rising energy costs and emissions taxes” says Greene. 

For instance, the Norwegian authorities have an ambition to raise the carbon tax to NOK 2000 per tonne of CO2 in 2030. The emission costs will increase from approximately 0,27 % of production value in 2022 to approximately 1,2 percent of the production value in 2030, estimate specialists in financial stability in Bank of Norway.  

Plays an important part in Aker Solutions Climate Action Plan 

We launched our Climate Action Plan to embed sustainability into operations. Our plan has four core focus areas where finding decarbonization solutions by using JustEco is part of this.

“We have set ambitious emissions reduction targets and are committed to reducing our own emissions by 50% by 2030. By 2050, our goal is to be net zero. To be successful and reach our targets, we have established a Climate Action Plan with concrete actions and milestones to reduce both our direct and indirect emissions.” says head of Sustainability in Aker Solutions, Trine Svalestad.