How can green tech help firms reach net zero?
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Ann-Marie Corvin reports on how firms can align technology with sustainability while navigating the carbon market maze.
While the corporate will to become sustainable has never been greater, and the need to act never more urgent, many businesses appear stuck in a policy quagmire and don’t really know where or how to start.
As Mia Diawara, a partner at Lowercarbon Capital, which invests in climate tech, observed at?Slush?last month: “What you often see is companies caught up in this paralysis, where they’ve made a commitment to sustainability – but they don’t know what to do next.
“It’s a lofty goal that someone from the C-Suite has committed to and they don’t know what to do so it gets passed down to the people below them.”
While there’s no direct link between technology and sustainability, it’s clear that digital tools that gather data, enhance supply chain visibility and optimise processes have obvious use cases in helping firms on their way towards net zero.
In theory, technology should be aligned with all organisations’ sustainability goals in the same way that digital transformation technologies have become aligned with their business goals, but we’re not at that stage yet.
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Only 7% of firms in a recent?Accenture survey?claim to have fully integrated their technology and sustainability strategies. 33% struggled with the complexity of the solutions meanwhile, or with making their legacy systems sustainable.
It’s notable that some of the early users of climate tech have come from the technology and finance sectors. Supercritical, for instance, is a software platform that claims to help asset businesses, VC funds and tech businesses, reduce and offset climate impact.
It’s founder Michelle You explains its customer base are the “perfect early adopters” because “they’re comfortable with risk and they understand scaling”.
There’s also a trend among CIOs within firms taking on the sustainability role. Jo Graham, CIO of online fashion retailer Boohoo recently led her firm’s?Agenda for Change (A4C)?to put an end to modern-day slavery allegations and supply chain failings.
At a recent summit she noted: “The project needed someone who had done transformation, who had done programming governance and who could work with and satisfy those people.”