Stepping up: tech and sustainability

Sustainability has been increasingly top of mind for many organisations across all industries. Companies the world over have made commitments to meet decarbonisation goals and are looking inward, reviewing their operations and processes all in a quest to reduce emissions.

For technology companies, however, sustainability involves both looking in—and looking out. Of course, tech companies are similarly examining their operations and supply chains in order to minimise carbon emissions. But the tech sector has the added responsibility and opportunity of developing the products that will support decarbonisation and help companies the world over to achieve their sustainability goals.

Where the impact is

When it comes to decarbonisation, clearly every sector has a role to play—but not all will have the same impact in the same way. Tech companies have a unique role to provide products and services that enable sustainability efforts across the entirety of the market, now and going forward.

That impact can be vast. Already over $3 trillion is likely to be spent on research and development in the ICT sector in the next decade. The potential for that to translate into products that have a positive impact on decarbonisation is one the sector needs to realise.

At the same time, the negative impacts associated with the growth and proliferation of technology must of course be minimised—such as increased energy use in data centres, rare metals and minerals in devices, and the ethical challenges associated with the exponential use of AI or social networks.

Embedding sustainability

When it comes to sustainability and impact, the focus for most sectors is on how you make products and services. For the tech sector, however, the focus is much more about how you use products and services. How can tech be deployed in the world for maximum positive effect? How can tech be used to help end users realise their own sustainability ambitions? That includes digitally enabled products and services that decarbonise our world, for example, through smart solutions and cloud computing.

Any company that offers digitally enabled products has the opportunity to contribute in this way. And there are three key steps to follow:

• Connect growth to impact and purpose: By connecting their purpose to the ultimate impact of their products and services, tech companies can align growth with impact.
• Set priorities that align to that purpose: Focusing efforts and strategy by determining impact priorities that differentiate between operations and products and services.
• Develop a program for delivery: Setting clear, quantifiable targets and building a delivery program that delivers value creation can enable impact through the core of the organisation.

Being proactive

With their two-fold responsibility, the tech sector has the opportunity to increase its role in the journey to sustainability even more. Digital technologies help companies connect and communicate, monitor and track, analyse and optimise, and augment and automate. By using digital technologies in this manner companies can shift more and more to electrification fuelled by renewable energy. We need the broad use of these innovative and scalable digital tools, to quicken the pace of our progress toward a low carbon economy.

But tech companies can’t operate in a vacuum. They need to work across industries to identify and innovate on the digital technologies that will take decarbonisation to the next level. This includes focusing on a few key sectors where technology can have the most impact in terms of application as well as the scale of the emitter. For example:

• Manufacturing: Technologies such as IoT, analytics, machine learning, 3-D printing are all becoming more accessible as factories innovate and automate. These technologies are enabling such carbon-reducing trends as on-demand manufacturing, supply chain optimisation, and predictive maintenance.
• Agriculture: Technology is playing a larger role in this sector and can help reduce carbon by bringing together IoT sensors and AI systems to monitor farm data in real time. This enables automatic responses to changing conditions and can reduce the use of such resources as fertiliser—which accounts for around a third of agricultural emissions.
• Energy and utilities: With electricity demand expected to double by 2050, technology-enabled tools that support decarbonisation is critical in this sector. Technology such as machine learning and AI can support energy and resource efficiency as well as enable smart grids that are more responsive to demand. Advances in storage technology will also play a large role in decarbonising this sector.
• Mobility: Technology has a range of sustainability applications within this sector, chief among them EVs and their batteries and charging networks. But technologies like IoT and AI can also drive decarbonisation via intelligent traffic systems, smart parking, and public transit efficiencies.
• Buildings: The use of fossil fuels for heating makes up almost half of the building sector’s emissions. Sensors and other technologies, however, can support smart buildings, which can improve efficiencies and responsiveness to heat and energy demands.

Looking to the future

With its unique position to drive the products needed to decarbonise, the tech sector must take on a leadership role, bringing together key stakeholders to collaborate and innovate. This means not only making the most of current technologies but also taking the lead in identifying and developing new technologies that can have the most impact.

The tech sector must also work to increase the understanding of how vital a role technology will play in decarbonisation. This understanding is key to supporting the research and development that will be needed to make critical technologies a reality. By aligning this pursuit of innovative products with the bottom line, tech companies will not only discover new opportunities for growth but also help the world make the great strides needed to achieve its sustainability goals.