Beyond the Factory: Service Lifecycle Optimization Drives Real Sustainability

The real environmental impact of industrial equipment often begins once it’s in operation, when it’s consuming energy, requiring maintenance, and contributing to emissions over time. This operational or service phase represents a significant and often overlooked opportunity for reducing environmental impact. To achieve meaningful and lasting sustainability, manufacturers and service providers must focus on optimizing the entire equipment lifecycle, especially the period after installation, when the product is delivering its intended value in the field.

The Impact of an Asset’s Operational Life

Once equipment leaves the factory floor and begins its operational life, that’s when the real environmental footprint begins to leave marks. Every hour of runtime, every maintenance visit, and every inefficiency results in energy use, emissions, and resource consumption. This is why the service phase, the longest and most active part of the product lifecycle, deserves increased attention.

The majority of an asset’s total cost of ownership (TCO) occurs during its operational life, while it is in service, making this period crucial for sustainability. With the help of service-based business models, manufacturers can prioritize maintenance, upgrades, and extend the asset’s life instead of focusing solely on production efficiency or raw material sourcing.

Technologies that monitor energy usage, optimize performance, and enable remote support are thus essential to reducing real-world impact. For example, cloud-based platforms for energy and sustainability data management leverage real-time data and analytics to cut energy consumption. If applied across entire fleets of industrial equipment, the gains can be significant..

Rethinking Circularity Through Service

A truly circular economy is not achieved just by recycling more, but also by extending the useful life of equipment and components in smart and measurable ways. That means designing for reuse, investing in refurbishment capabilities, and embedding remanufacturing into the service offering.

For many service organizations, this might mean prioritizing repair over replacement, reclaiming parts, or partnering with suppliers to implement take-back strategies that not only reduce waste, but also keep valuable materials in use longer, significantly lowering the carbon footprint of operations. Many original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are already repairing and reusing spare parts to manage supply disruptions and reduce environmental impact, showing that circularity and resilience are interconnected.

As Copperberg’s service excellence reports show, the vast majority of companies involved in asset management and industrial service models now recognize circular strategies as key to their sustainability goals. This not only leads to cost savings but also to the realization that circularity in industrial equipment can significantly contribute to a reduction in Scope 3 emissions, the indirect emissions that are generated through product use and service.

Procurement Is Getting Smarter and Greener

In sectors like energy and heavy machinery, procurement officers are increasingly responsible for considering the environmental impact of equipment throughout its entire lifecycle. This includes evaluating service-related emissions and resource consumption. 

A Deloitte Digital benchmark report based on a survey of 1,300 B2B customers found that they valued suppliers who demonstrated high levels of humanity and transparency, alongside their carbon reduction and other sustainability initiatives, significantly influencing their purchasing decisions and willingness to pay premium prices. Buyers also tend to prefer suppliers who can support their sustainability claims and ESG scores with credible data, metrics, and transparency.

This procurement trend is especially prominent among younger, environmentally-conscious buyers. The demographic shift in procurement is reshaping how industrial services are evaluated. These younger professionals seek solutions aligned with long-term environmental and operational goals. The demand for transparent, actionable sustainability metrics is at an all-time high, which presents both challenges and opportunities for service providers.

A New Generation of Buyers, A New Set of Expectations

Today, the majority of B2B buyers and decision-makers, over 71%, comprises of Millennials and Gen Z. They are digital natives whose values have been influenced by climate awareness and social accountability. They expect digital and data-driven solutions. They prioritize ESG values in purchasing decisions and are far more likely to scrutinize a supplier’s sustainability claims. They expect transparency, demand data, and gravitate toward partners who can prove, not just claim, their commitment to reducing environmental impact. 

For manufacturers and service providers, this shift is both a challenge and a massive opportunity. Those who can practice sustainability and back it up with meaningful metrics, third-party certifications, and lifecycle transparency stand to gain a powerful competitive edge in tomorrow’s market.

Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), certified under ISO 14025, along with other forms of verified environmental data such as Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs), can help manufacturers differentiate themselves from the competition with standardized, transparent insights into the environmental impacts of products throughout their lifecycle. They can thus demonstrate compliance, support sustainability claims, and build credibility with customers. 

Turning Data into a Sustainability Differentiator

Service providers who can track, measure, and report their environmental performance are better positioned to help customers meet their own targets, and build trust.

Real-time energy monitoring platforms, combined with ISO 14025-certified EPDs, empower service providers to demonstrate their carbon reduction and resource optimization. This data is not just for internal use but a crucial part of B2B relationships that helps customers make informed, sustainable decisions.

Tracking and measuring operational actions is also essential. For example, predictive maintenance that prevents unnecessary replacements or energy optimization via connected systems are practices that can be quantified and linked to reduced emissions. Providers who can track, measure, and report these efficiencies are more likely to win over eco-friendly buyers.

Measuring the Right Things: From Intention to Impact

Less waste is less waste—but unless we can measure the reduction, the impact stays anecdotal. Service providers need to move beyond general claims and start quantifying outcomes. Whether it’s through reduced technician travel via remote service, predictive maintenance that prevents unnecessary replacements, or energy optimization through connected systems, every measurable action counts.

Companies that implement predictive maintenance and remote diagnostics can significantly cut maintenance costs and reduce downtime, which translates into lower carbon emissions, reduced resource consumption, and extended asset lifecycles, all of which directly contribute to sustainability goals.

Sustainability Starts with Service

The shift to sustainable service models is already underway across industries. Organizations are increasingly embracing strategies that prioritize environmental responsibility alongside operational efficiency:

• Remote-first service approaches, such as virtual diagnostics and digital monitoring, significantly reduce travel-related emissions while improving response time and system uptime.
• Retrofitting existing equipment with more efficient components or digital upgrades not only extends product lifespans but also reduces the need for raw materials and the environmental impact of manufacturing new assets.
• Predictive maintenance tools, powered by real-time data and analytics, help anticipate failures before they occur, minimizing unplanned downtime, reducing energy waste, and optimizing the use of service resources.

However, scaling these practices requires organizational alignment and cultural transformation. Field technicians and service teams must be equipped with the right digital tools and training. Incentives must shift to reward long-term performance and environmental outcomes rather than short-term fixes. Most importantly, sustainability must be seen as an integrated part of service delivery, a value proposition that customers recognize, measure, and reward.

Real Sustainability Happens in the Field

Sustainability does not begin and end at the design table or the production line. It lives in the field, in how we operate, maintain, and support equipment every day. The service lifecycle is where environmental goals are either realized or missed. As Copperberg consistently emphasizes in its service excellence and sustainability summits, industry leaders are shifting their focus from production-driven sustainability to service-driven sustainability that optimizes the use phase of industrial assets and makes a real impact, driven by operational excellence and measurable change.