Applied research to decarbonize our daily lives

In its new national Flagship Initiative programme, which supports 15 innovative collaborative research projects, Innosuisse has approved three large-scale projects in which the University of Applied Sciences is involved through the Institute of Informatics. To better understand the importance of this project and its concrete impact on the lives of citizens, Jean-Paul Calbimonte, Professor and researcher at the Institute, answers a few questions about the WISER project - Web of Interoprable Digital Services for Knowledge on Decarbonisation Pathways

What is the WISER project about?

The flagship project WISER proposes a systemic innovation for Switzerland: to become a world leader in environmental accounting. WISER provides a digital assessment platform and visualization tools for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and for analyzing the carbon footprints (CF) of supply chains. Three application cases are planned: information and communication technology infrastructure for cities, data centers and production lines.

What motivated the submission of a project on this topic?

Local and national decarbonization objectives depend on the provision of tools, processes and data that affect the entire life cycle of the products and services that our society consumes. I believe that the results of the WISER project will demonstrate how a new digital platform can add transparency and create accountability for economic and political actors in calculating their carbon footprint. Furthermore, this project requires a multidisciplinary team, with a combination of expertise in digitization, carbon footprint assessment, business strategy, knowledge management and impact assessment, and I am looking forward to working with all these stakeholders.

What can the WISER project bring to citizens?

Citizens could have transparent access to the whole process of calculating the impact and carbon footprint of a range of products and services. In addition, it could enable the creation of new economic services, such as optimizing the use of renewable energy (hours of use or charging of cars and other appliances) or promoting the consumption of products and services with a reduced carbon footprint.