The next web is ... sustainable

The next web is …sustainable.

Digital solutions play an enabling role for at least 20-25% of the reductions to achieve net-zero European economy. Adam Elman, head of sustainability (Google EMEA) started his presentation with this statement at TNW23.

It is good to see that at Europa’s leading tech conference where it always is about the next ‘thing’, they built in more time than ever in for sustainability driven topics. Tech companies like Google seem to take a leading role in sustainability. From saving 1.2 million megaton co2 through sustainable driving with Google Maps, to AI flood prediction 7 days in forehand helping 250 million vulnerable people across the globe. ‘That means you too Dutchies, as nearly a quarter of your land is below sea level’ Adam could have stated even more explicit. ?

How to frame the next ‘thing’ as a business opportunity. That is what I learned most from visiting TNW in the past (15?) years. Some examples how to frame:

Metaverse was hot in '22. Now it is not so hot anymore, plus Mark hijacked the generic name. So at TNW it was about the spatial web. Hmmm?

Fintech was hot in the past years with more unicorns taking stage than banks. But how to frame it now? How to manage the downturn as a theme? True, but I guess this topic also got a lot of attention because of the Financial Times involvement. Fintech has inflated a bit;)

Undoubtedly, talk of the town is chatGPT. I guess 90% of the people talking about it don’t know what the abbreviation means. Even in the tech community: ‘Who knows what AGI means?’ the moderator Matthew asked the crowd, but nearly no one got it. Generative Pre-trained Transformers or artificial generative intelligence is the amplifier on years of AI. You don’t need to frame it anymore. The use cases are convincing as you can apply them yourself. So, it’s not the next thing. It's the now thing. The next thing is will it hurt us humans or at the least which jobs? A panel with leaders from Deepmind and Singularity university said like 50 times in a 30 minutes panel: Let’s use it for the good. Great idea. Any idea how to control ‘it’? That’s the next thing.

So how to frame sustainability in the tech world? It is about convincing your stakeholders that putting your money on sustainability is not only about charity or long term gains but contributing directly to business too. Twin Transition I picked up as the term I would go for. Where digital ambitions and sustainability ambitions meet. You can use the budget freed up on strategic digital plans for sustainability purposes. E.g. if you can be smarter about how you use data (migrating to the (hyper)cloud, green coding, servers on ecomode adjusting your server capacity to the expected use) you save both energy and costs. A twin-twin.

ButI must admit I am framing too. The topics I am stating are especially relevant for my work, my mission and my assignments with Mennovation. The AI and sustainability topics are hot for the insurance industry. Currently, I am working for NN (Sustainability for a Dutch leading casualty insurer) and happy to see they are scaling up their presence at TNW, with not only a leadership event aside but also a booth and contribution on stage. Well done!

The green IT topic is from a startup I am currently advising. https://www.smartpowerperformance.com/

So I am hardly objective. Still, if I calculate how many conversations I had during TNW with tech and fintech entrepreneurs, investors and ecosystem builders: We talked a lot about sustainability, both climate tech and social. I learned from the talk of Robert Brunner (designer of a.o. Beats): The value in your work is not per se the time you charge but more a sum of years of experience. AI cannot replace that? Or can it? Anyhow, adding up all that data I must conclude: The next web is ... sustainable by design, in operations and with positive impact for all. That would be good news because we need those digital solutions to achieve a net zero economy a.s.a.p.