Appendix - A Systematic Approach To Increase Sustainability In SMEs Through The Use Of Artificial Intelligence In A Digitalized Consulting Process
Description
Sustainability is an increasingly important and pressing issue in Western society. Companies must develop both: innovative and targeted solutions to meet these environmental demands. These goes straight ahead with increasing urgency to improve the sustainability of companies' value creation activities. This urgency is reinforced by political measures, such as the introduction of extensive reporting obligations, which aim to make companies sustainability practices transparent and monitorable to external stakeholders. This paper therefore presents a systematic approach for the sustainable development of our production ecosystem with a focus on small and medium-sized manufacturing companies. The aim is to conserve the valuable resources of companies through a smart, AI-supported and digitalised consulting service. The presented framework aims to generate an output that will allow companies to focus on fine-tuning and context-specific implementation of results at an operational level. The EU's upcoming voluntary small and medium-sized enterprises reporting standard (VSME), is concepted to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) to record their sustainability goals and improve stakeholder communication. From 2025, the modular standard will be divided into three parts: Basic information on sustainability, detailed targets and measures (PAT), and requirements for business partners for better financing conditions. This includes the fulfillment of reporting obligations as well as the implementation of recommendations on strategies and the resulting operational measures within production. This contribution introduces a digital consulting process and a selection of suitable technologies to put it into practice. The aim is to support the management of SMEs in developing a sustainability strategy and in deriving compliant reports.