Selling Shovels in a Sustainability Rush

Technology has become an essential part of our daily lives. It helps us interact with one another, work, study and even have some fun. But despite these obvious benefits, IT consumes significant amounts of energy at an accelerated pace.

The climate crisis poses critical challenges to individuals and companies alike, and the tech industry is no exception. It has a big role to play in the efforts to curb climate change. First, there’s an urgent need to make existing technology more sustainable. And second, because the industry can leverage its expertise to use technology to make the world a better place.

Only those organizations that understand the importance of incorporating sustainable practices into their agendas will thrive. In this article, we’ll discuss why companies should adopt a sustainable mindset across their entire operation and how they can do it.

An IT-for-sustainability strategy for each organisation?

There’s a lot of untapped value in going green, and tech companies can harness it to build a more sustainable future. Adopting a sustainable mindset is not only good for the planet: it can actually bring benefits to your business as well.?

Counterintuitive? No! Investing in sustainable business practices can increase your profitability and enhance your company’s performance, contributing to the organization's overall success.

Here’s what a sustainability-based business model can do :

1. Brand awareness and value. Nowadays, there’s a massive demand for environmentally conscious brands that are not afraid to take a stand and promote sustainable practices in their industry. The tech sector can benefit from more eco-friendly values, engaging the large sector of the population that is currently concerned about the effects of climate change.
2. Talent attraction and retention. In a recent survey, nearly 40% of millennials stated that they chose a job because of corporate sustainability. In fact, people go as far as to say that they would take a pay cut to work at a company that is environmentally responsible and aligned with their personal values. By doing business with sustainability in mind, your company can attract and retain motivated and highly qualified talent.
3. Enhanced efficiency. Believe it or not, a sustainability strategy can increase efficiency by reducing costs and increasing operating profits. A recent study showed that resource-efficient companies perform better financially and can improve operating profits by up to 60%.
4. An opportunity for innovation. There’s a significant demand in the market for sustainable technology, meaning that companies in this field are now presented with a huge opportunity for innovation. The tech industry is probably better equipped than any other to come up with brand-new solutions to foster sustainable practices and help curb climate change.
5. The right thing to do. We could go on and on about the corporate and business benefits that a sustainable strategy can bring to your company. But, at the end of the day, adopting a more climate-conscious mindset is just the right thing to do.

It’s clear that a sustainability strategy is more than a “nice-to-have” feature. It’s a necessity, both from the environmental and the business point of view.

The IT industry should be particularly interested in adopting more sustainable practices, as it consumes energy resources at an incredibly fast pace to operate on a daily basis.

We literally have a nine year window’ to stop climate change – ‘There’s a ticking clock’ - Leonardo Di Caprio

The path towards corporate sustainability

There’s no exact roadmap towards corporate sustainability, but there are a series of steps that organizations can take to become aware of their environmental footprint and begin to deal with it.

The first step is acknowledging there’s a problem. Measuring carbon emissions and energy consumption, for instance, can help companies understand their environmental impact and start working to reduce it. Many organizations have already taken this step, and every day we see new and more accurate measurement mechanisms.

In fact, the Green Software Foundation recently released the alpha version of “Software Carbon Intensity (SCI) Specification ”, a method for scoring a software system based on its carbon emissions. This tool allows developers to account for software carbon emission in their work and it can serve to reduce the overall carbon footprint of software.

Once you are aware of your organization’s footprint, you can take the appropriate action to curb it. This means making more eco-friendly choices, such as prioritizing the development of technologies with built-in sustainability features, defining energy consumption thresholds, or using green energy across all your company’s sites.

Major players in the tech industry are already implementing ambitious sustainability strategies. Apple, for instance, is already carbon neutral and has pledged to make every single one of its products carbon neutral by 2030. The company is also investing in carbon removal initiatives and working towards a waste-free operation.

Accenture, on the other hand, is committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2025 by meeting its office energy needs with renewable energy and requesting its key suppliers to disclose their environmental strategy. They also plan to move to zero waste and measure and reduce water use across their high-risk locations.

Finally, Microsoft —which has been carbon neutral since 2012— has pledged to become carbon negative by 2030, meaning they will offset more carbon than they emit.

Change is afoot

The climate crisis is everyone’s responsibility. Taking a proactive approach and designing sustainability strategies to help curb climate change serves a twofold purpose. On the one hand, it can redefine your brand’s value, help you attract the right talent, and enhance the efficiency of your entire operation. On the other hand, it can significantly impact the planet and make it a better place to live in.

By harnessing the power of technology and working on innovative sustainable solutions, the IT industry can become a positive agent of change and be at the forefront of the efforts towards a greener future.

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Farouk Mezghich.