 I'm Steve Nunn, President and CEO of the Open Group. Welcome to Toolkit Tuesday, where we highlight the various components and leading experts of the Architects Toolkit, a collated portfolio of the most pertinent technology standards for enterprise architects. During the series, I'll be calling on a number of recognized experts who will bring their particular insights on how to most effectively use the various tools in the Architects Toolkit. We'll have a mix of interviews, panel sessions, and pre-recorded presentations along the way. While all standards of the Open Group are designed so they can be adopted independently of one another, the greatest value for an organization can be derived when they're used in unison, that some of the parts should be greater than the whole. In the Architects Toolkit, we have collated a portfolio of the most pertinent ones for architects, together, all in one place. For most of these tools, certification from the Open Group is also available, so practitioners can demonstrate that they have the skills required, and recruiters can take the guesswork out of the recruitment process all backed up by our Open Badges program. Chat, AI, and Energy. I've posted before about chatbots and sustainability, separately from an architect's point of view. I learned recently about the energy consumption involved in developing and operating these chat AIs, like Chat GPT, for example. I can't do it justice here, but I urge you, go take a look. I was horrified. I expected it to be quite excessive, partly as the whole setup doesn't work on the basis of ruthless fragility, and of course the promulgation of many siloed bots, as I've said before, simply replicates the energy cost. So ignoring the debate between the trustworthiness and the threat of these AI models or the opportunities that they present, as responsible architects, we need to make their sustainability footprints a key concern and an architectural risk for us. I can easily see technical debt not being measured in dollars, but in energy footprint as a result of this explosion in AI chat models. Welcome everyone to Toolkit Tuesday. And a great thank you, as usual, to Paul Holman, very on topic there, Paul Holman Distinguished Engineer at IBM and member of the Open Group Governing Board. Paul Holman's always seems to have some good thoughts here and teeing us up to think about the carbon impact of the latest AI developments and chat GBT. It's a perfect topic for today, where we are going to be talking about some of the work that the Open Group has been doing in the Open Footprint Forum around that very topic. But before we do, just a quick bit of housekeeping. As I say, welcome to you wherever you are. Thank you for joining us. Great to have you with us. And we're delighted to have people join us from all over the world. Those of you who are regulars will hear me say this not all the time, but nearly all the time. It's great to know that we are a global community and that the work that we all do together has an impact globally. And none more so than... No topic is more important than today's topic for that having a global impact. But just a quick item. If you'd like to ask a question of today's speaker, then please do that through the Q&A channel in the WebEx tool. And if you can't see the Q&A channel, please click on the three little dots in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen. And that will give you the opportunity to click on Q&A. So please ask any questions through there. And please encourage you to use the chat channel. As I said, we're spread all over the world. So let us know where you're joining us from. Let your other fellow attendees know where you're joining us from. I kicked it off. Welcome from Sonoma County, California, where we have normal service resumed on the weather, which hasn't been the case so far this year. But we needed the rain. So without further ado, our topic today is the work, as I say, the work that we're doing inside the open group on carbon emissions measurement. And as you know, climate change and the impacts of carbon are becoming more material every day. And the world is recognizing the impacts. There isn't a day goes by where we don't see something about the impacts risks or opportunities around this topic. And over the past several years, the open group's been working collaboratively across multiple industries, technology consulting, academia and other groups to establish a standardized data model to enable the accurate and timely reporting and sharing of carbon data. As you'll hear, that's a challenge without some work being done. Companies need to have a level of trust to influence and improve their sustainability impact, and that trust is increased by having a well-aligned data model. So today our focus is on that data model, and we are delighted to have with us Mr. Ajay Vandervoort. So Ajay, welcome. Ajay is a customer-focused, results-oriented global executive with more than 28 years of experience with Fortune 500 companies in oil and gas, oil-filled services, consumer goods, automotive and government in most continents of the world. He's currently been 10 years with InterTech. Before that, he was with SAP for 15 years, and he started his career working on Unix Systems, which is a topic dear to the hearts of folk at the open group, still an important part of our world. So warm welcome to Toolkit Tuesday for Ajay Vandervoort. Over to you, sir. Thank you, Steve, for the warm introduction and greetings from sunny Florida. In the next 20 minutes, I'll be discussing our comprehensive standardized data model for carbon emissions. On the right, you can see the well-known image of the greenhouse gas protocol standard. It differentiates between direct and indirect emissions and scopes 1, 2 and 3, providing clarity in order to avoid double counting. Now, OFP, which stands for Open Footprint Forum, has taken this concept and developed a versatile data standard focused on third-party verification by auditors as regulators are mandating this on a global basis. That means companies need to have a level of trust in data in order to influence and improve their sustainability impacts, and that trust is increased by having a well-aligned data model. More on that later. First, let's delve a bit deeper into the topic of standards. As you can see here at the bottom, there are various reporting standards and I only have put up a few. There are frameworks and as well-aligned, for example, the WBCSD, which stands for the World Business Council of Sustainable Development. They outline the requirements for ESG and carbon reporting, yet often they overlook the technical details and currently there is no established technical standard. OFP provides this. This enables companies and technology providers like hyperscalers, ERP software companies and other ESG tools to use the OFP standard and implement their own way for tracking, managing and exchanging the data, providing maximum flexibility and extensibility. As you can understand, there are many players in OFP's ecosystem, from policy makers, standard setters, auditors to technology companies. Many impactful partners are already engaged in the forum and the following organisations have already committed to OFP and total 288 members. They are organised in six working groups. Each working group meets once a week. Some groups are more technical, others are functionally around sustainability and regulators, or more marketing related. I mentioned before, there is a reason why this is urgent. As regulators, like the SEC, which stands for the Security and Exchange Commission, are mandating climate-related disclosure next to financials. The timeline here on the slide shows when the proposed law is expected to be final. As you can see at the bottom, the UK is already active and the SEC's final rule is expected this month, followed by Canada and Europe in the middle in the summer of this year. Based on this ruling, the blue arrow shows when carbon data collection should start. For example, in the UK, they require five years of historic data, once you file in Q3 2024. The SEC, however, requires two years of data. This means when the first filing is due in Q1 2025, you're required to report on data from Q1 2023, which started a couple of months ago. Notice well when limited and reasonable assurance is required. This means data quality is not optional. Today, most companies use thousands of spreadsheets as reporting is voluntary. In OFP, we've identified over 30 disclosure requirements that are consistent amongst the global sustainability regs that impact the data model. Here, a list of the first eight. For example, periods covered. As I mentioned in the previous slide, that the UK requires five years of data, including energy usage performance. I've highlighted that here in the bottom. Now, what does the data model look like? Here is a high-level overview. Note the various entities and their relationships. I hope you can zoom in to look at that in more detail. At the bottom, you find the carbon emissions per product value chain entities, as defined by the WBCSD scope three requirements for carbon data exchange. This is important because our alliance with WBCSD is quite critical. We even included product lifecycle analysis, or LCA, as the industry calls it. That means we are ready for the circular economy. A complete data model for all your sustainability needs. The next three slides show the basic concepts. The heart of the data model are the emission activities, either source or sync, and its calculations. You can build hierarchies like what you do in accounting, with the output being a statement, like with your financials, of your greenhouse gas inventory. Ready for the regulators. Here is an example of those activities and how they are calculated for an organization structure, with its unique organizational, operational, or financial boundaries, based on equity share or emission allocations. Each reg or regulation has different requirements. Last but not least, as I mentioned before, emissions per product. Remember that on each product that you buy from the supermarket, you'll find how much calories there are in this product. It is envisaged that it will be a time where each product will have as well what is its carbon intensity. As per WBCSD requirements for data exchange in your supply chain, including lifecycle analysis. And this diagram shows the depth and breadth of the data model. So what else makes OFP unique? And that's its architecture. As the model is built on a 21st century architecture with microservices and containerization for AI, IoT, backdata, or blockchain, with an API-first approach, including the latest cybersecurity and DevOps environments from the world's latest hyperscalers with most microservices from Google Open Edition, that you can run on either AWS, Azure, or GCP. That means maximum flexibility for independent software vendors or companies that want to use it as either a platform as a service called PAS, a software as a service called SAS, or a business process as a service, and build cool apps and data insights on top of an open source OFP. So what about integration and interoperability? Well, there is something unique about common data. Most data is already there, either sitting in an API system in some form or thousands of spreadsheets. All you need to do is ingest it and rich with calculations and then consume and deliver to support a full lifecycle of data. That's called sustainability build-in. Meet for analytics, climate risk mitigation, lifecycle analysis, carbon offsets, or just simply regulatory reporting. You don't need a monolith rigged ERP system with limited integration and interoperability. Even better, the Open Group has delivered this successfully with standardization of subsurface data called OSDU. OFP is using the same architecture with a different data model for all the data above surface. This is the last slide. We need your help. The data model is already developed. Of course, it can still be extended and it will evolve. We need your help with validating, extending and documentation. Please join us and you will see here the website link or you can contact Alison, who is as well on this call. I'll pause here and hand it back to Steve for Q&A. Thank you. AJ, thank you very much. It was a whistle-stop tour that represents an awful lot of work that's been going on. Thank you very much for that and for setting it into a context that we can all understand because after all, it's one of the major topics we hear about every day about the carbon emissions. If I can just play you back before I get to the questions, if I can just play you back how I've always understood this and what we're doing and that's that right now, believe it or not, there is no common way for organizations, for companies to record and report their emissions data. Some of them are making great claims zero by whatever date, but it's based on the set of standards and the models that they choose to use rather than anything that's consistent so you can't really compare apples with apples. Is that about fair? That's about fair and that is one of the principles of what we focused on at OFB is as well the verifiability of the data. Where do you get that number from? Like every order to would ask when you, particularly at this time of year when taxes are due, that receipt that you gave me or that number that you have here where did it come from? Can I trust that data? Because it's now mandated by the regulator there are liabilities. So boards of directors worldwide particularly of public companies all are concerned about what's going to happen in the next couple of years and they don't want to be held liability for data that is not somewhat accurate or reasonable accurate. Yeah, no, of course. Of course. So as I said, different organizations are using what they can use at the moment or what they choose to use. So what makes the work that's going on here different from other data models for greenhouse gas emissions? And that's a great question, Steve, because, you know, as you've said in the introduction, I have a long ERP background and monolithic systems costing quite a lot of dollars to implement, right? I think the first thing that's exciting about OFB that it's built on 21st century architecture as I mentioned in one of the slides, right? Because in the previous century proliferation of spreadsheets proprietary systems with their own databases have created a hodgepodge of non-integrated data systems that we're all still suffering from and pulsated correctly technical debt, right? Secondly, the data model is backed by an industry that has done this for all data that is subsurface as I mentioned, right? OFB benefits from five years of data standardization, right? And we're not yet finished, right? There's still a lot of ways to go. We just have to do it above ground for all industry. And do not forget that 70, I think it's about 73% of all emissions globally is actually caused by those energy companies that I mentioned before, right? So they have a vast experience with managing that data not only for subservice as well above ground. And lastly, the open group they have proven they can deliver standardization in IT. They did it with Unix and all major OSes like Android, Mac OS and Unix are a core. Even Windows I hear is turning a corner but I'll leave that up to you, Steve. Yes, let's not go there right now. But it's a great point you make that we're building on something we know works both the approaches that we're taking but also actually building on the OSTU for which ironically, I say ironically, maybe these things aren't just thrown together. That is the subject of next week's Toolkit Tuesday. But I'll save that for then. But we're building on something right but delivered by the energy companies but what you guys are doing in the Open Footprint Forum is really relevant across all industries as far as I can see. Every industry is going to need to do this reporting. Is that not the case? Absolutely correct. And that's why it's all about particularly because of scope three where you have to look into your supply chain, right? Then based on let's say a recipe or a bill of material you somehow have to figure out what is the carbon footprint of the product that I'm making, right? And then you have to sell that product, right? That's the downstream part, right? So it has an impact on all industries, right? And as Paul mentioned in the beginning session, right? There is as well a look into what does it mean for software, right? We is well involved with the Green Software Foundation who've actually developed a software carbon intensity model. So you could calculate based on AI or blockchain or whatever what would be the carbon intensity per, let me call it serving, whatever that serving is, right? Is it per hour? Is it per PC? Is it per blade? Is it per process or per transaction, right? That's possible to do. Great, great. And so far, how would you describe the adoption of industries around this data model? I mean, it's still work in progress, I think is an important point. But how would you describe the adoption levels? Yeah, I think the exciting thing is that first of all the big three hyperscalers are committed. I've mentioned them already. That is AWS, that's Microsoft with Azure and it is Google with Google Cloud Platform, right? And secondly, the big four audit, financial audit companies. I myself, I'm from a non-financial audit company called InterTech. We're heavily involved in ESG assurance. We are collaborating. So last but not least, the largest emitters. I mentioned them before on the planet, right? Responsible for 73% of emissions have committed. So I think that is a great statement for what we've already achieved. And next target is to get independent software developers to develop cool apps on OFP. Right, absolutely. I mean, there are lots of other things to leverage from inside the open group there on the architecture side, on the data model side, there are various things. And so I think I would predict some cooperation and collaboration between individuals in different forums in the open group too on this. But also a point you made early on your slide and I realized until people get these and have the chance to look at them again, they may not have been able to see clearly some of the organizations involved. But we always at the open group are very open to cooperating with other organizations working in the same space. There's enough work to be done without redoing stuff. So you've mentioned a couple of specific alliances and I think that's a key part of moving forward with this group. That's correct, Steve. Great stuff. So one question that I'm sure people you've called to action was we need your help. What could people expect in terms of a time commitment? Because obviously we all have day jobs. You all have day jobs. How much of a commitment is this to participate and make a difference in this way? I think it really depends how much you like to be involved. I'd say a minimum of one hour per week to attend a set of workshops or whatever you want to be close to. I must admit that in between teams and Zoom meetings these days, I look forward to get my hands dirty on some carbon data because there is so much to learn, right? And I'll leave it at that. Back to you, Steve. Yeah, I appreciate it. AJ, we'll leave it there in the interest of time. Thank you very much for your summary. And I will see you. It gives me a chance to give a shameless plug for the Open Group Summit event in London, April 17th to the 20th at the QE2 Centre in Westminster. And the Open Footprint Forum will be meeting there along with many of the other forums of the Open Group. So I look forward to seeing you there, AJ. And thank you for all you do. Thank you. OK. So that's it for today's topic. But we have another one next week. Some of you will know we're on a weekly cadence right now leading up to that, the summit I just mentioned in London. And next week's topic will be on the OSDU, the Open Group OSDU Forum data platform. AJ mentioned that that's been, a lot of that work has been leveraged by the Open Footprint Forum. But the OSDU Forum has really been an incredibly successful, highly active and participatory group that's been going in the Open Group for some time. And they are really changing the way things are happening in the, currently in the subsurface world of the oil and gas industry. But now looking to how that can be used, all their work can be used and repurposed towards new energy as well. So I'm looking forward to hearing about that. I'll be joined by my colleague Dennis Stevens, who's the Program Director for the OSDU Forum. So that's same time, same place next week. And I do hope you can join us for that. It's a great story we have there. And in the meantime, thank you for joining us today and keep safe and well wherever you are in the world. I'm Steve Nunn. Thank you for watching Toolkit Tuesday.