Financial analyst Cowen teams up with MassRobotics to examine robotics and climate change

Investment research company Cowen and startup incubator MassRobotics announced a groundbreaking research report on the increasing role robotics is playing in helping companies achieve climate goals.

Joe Giordano, CFA, Cowen’s diversified industrials, automation and robotics analyst, led the Ahead Of The Curve Series report, which incorporated a survey from MassRobotics that polled manufacturers and end-users to understand where robotics is positioned within their climate toolkit.

Joe Giordano, says: “The robotic technologies we explore in this report are maximizing the output (GDP) per unit of carbon and minimizing the carbon needed to achieve a targeted level of activity.

“While the world is getting better at producing and transacting more efficiently, we are bumping up against hard caps of actual gross carbon output. This will ultimately require significant new technologies and/or changes in behavior.”

Tom Ryden, executive director of MassRobotics, adds: “Robotics is a critical element of production and fulfillment and has a significant role in ensuring demand is met in a carbon-efficient manner.

“We see solutions being evaluated in a more holistic, ESG-centric fashion and viewed as tools to help accomplish climate goals. For example, just one robotics application in ecommerce could reduce carbon output by more than 10 million metric tons.”

Key highlights of the report include:

• More than 90 percent of respondents expect to use robotics or develop robotics to help them achieve climate change-related objectives. However, only 44 percent have deployed such solutions to date, suggesting much of the opportunity lies ahead.
• Nearly 75 percent of respondents expect that current and potential customers will discuss climate change in their conversations going forward.
• About half of survey participants are actively working with climate crisis solutions providers (73 percent of end-users and 45 percent of manufacturers), though the interest level is significantly higher, indicating an upward trajectory.