Sustainability: So Many Ways to Start

The Sustainability Series, Part 1: So Many Ways To Start

The world as we know it is coming to an end. That’s a bad thing – human beings have damaged and destroyed so much of the planet while extracting and consuming so many resources from it that we are faced with a future we know will include shortages of food, water and safe shelter for hundreds of millions, if not billions, of people. That future won’t include many of the species that are alive today or large parts of places like Louisiana, Florida, Venice, Jakarta and the Maldives.

The world as we know it is coming to an end. That’s also a good thing. We have woken up to the fact that we cannot continue to destroy our environment, and we have started to figure out how live in a way that will lower and, eventually, undo the damage we’ve done. Science Based Targets reports that 70% of the global economy is covered by net-zero pledges. Microsoft has committed to being carbon negative by 2030. 20% of the electricity generated in the United States in 2022 (through November) was from renewable sources. Electric car sales rose from 120,000 in 2012 to almost seven million in 2021.

The world as we know it is coming to an end, and you can help. In this series, we’ll explore all the ways that companies and individuals can contribute to environmental sustainability. We’ll talk about how to estimate the impact of such actions, both in terms of cost and benefit, and some ways to maximize benefit and minimize cost. While I’m writing from a technology context in terms of career, job, and experience, we’ll try to range beyond just the technology area and reference/bring in resources with different areas of expertise. Sustainability is a topic as big as the world, and we intend to cover as much of it as we can so that all of us can be part of the solution. Let’s start by talking about why it is now easier than ever to make a positive impact on environmental sustainability.

We know what the big problems are

Bill Gates needs no introduction, but his work with the Gates Foundation and Breakthrough Energy is not as well-known as it should be. Both entities take action against some of the biggest challenges the world faces AND act as great resources for information on those challenges and how we can address them. Gates devoted a section of his year-end blog entry to the climate challenge, and here are some of the key points on it:

• Global emissions rose from 51 (in 2021) to 52 billion tons of carbon equivalents in 2022
• Global emissions must decrease to ~30 billion tons by 2030 to achieve most scenarios that would limit global warming to 1.5° C
• Global emissions must decrease to net zero by 2050 to achieve most scenarios that would limit global warming to 1.5° C
• Current national commitments to emissions reductions are likely to lead to global warming of about 3° C by 2100

Climate change is one of the big three problems in environmental sustainability. Another is pollution. When we add non-biodegradable waste to the environment, we put direct and indirect burdens on ecosystems we depend on. The metrics around this pollution aren’t as clear-cut as with climate change, but the problem statement is still clear (and examples abound). We must lower the amount of toxic and non-biodegradable waste we put into the environment. That means increased recycling, sustainable resource extraction and manufacturing, and increased use of safely disposable products.

We are already solving this problem! Today about 40% of the steel produced in the world is created through recycling. With any luck, we may one day have a pollution-based equivalent to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, which gives enterprises visibility of the carbon impact of their full supply chain.

The third big problem is excess consumption. It is different from the first two in that it is not a direct impact but rather a driver of both climate change and pollution. However, as a driver of both impacts, it offers us greater leverage. Finally, there are a few types of consumption that are being radically optimized through technology, and that brings us to some good news…

We have many ways to make the big problems smaller

As an IT professional, I spend a lot of time thinking about information security. It can be quite frustrating because the attack surface is always expanding and there’s always another attack vector. It can feel like a problem that can never be solved.

Pursuing environmental sustainability puts us in the exact opposite position. The fact that we do so many things that are bad for the environment means that the surface we are attacking is massive. Continuous innovation in energy production, transmission, and storage, as well as in materials, recycling and biodegradables gives us an increasing number of ways to hack at the problem of environmental impact. Here are the highest-impact options:

Lower energy consumption and increase use of energy from renewables

Modernize energy production to include co-generation where possible – that’s actually point #8 in the linked article, but the whole article is great

1. Leverage supplier energy optimization. Public cloud is a great example of this.
2. Use smart building technologies to optimize energy use on lighting and HVAC.

Circular business models

1. Some companies are taking ownership of the full lifecycle of their products – converting to leasing models with product recovery and recycling
2. Others are networking to build a circular business model that spans multiple organizations
3. I was listening to my favorite (okay, only) finance podcast – Motley Fool Money – when I learned about Li-cycle. Li-cycle provides a full-service solution for recycling lithium-ion batteries, lowering waste and reducing the need for net new resources.

Public policy

1. Governments all around the world are making emissions commitments and building policies to meet them. For example, Singapore’s carbon tax is scheduled to rise from $5/ton in 2023 to $25 in 2024 and $45 in 2026. ?
2. Just like hyper-scalers have the money and the motivation to invest in green data center technologies, governments have the money and power to invest in infrastructure that provides sustainability benefits.
3. Education. We know enough about how to solve the problems of environmental sustainability that we can now build it into the full lifecycle of education. From primary school to graduate school, we can arm ourselves for this challenge. That’s how we’ll establish the new behavioral baselines required for the future.

I was taught about pollution, global warming and recycling as a kid, but that thread dwindled as I went through secondary school, college and grad school. However, I was in Milan recently (and yes, travel presents a sustainability challenge I have to work on) and happened to walk by the Sustainability Management School, which has offered BBAs and MBAs in Sustainability Management for 10 years.

There’s more, of course. For those of you looking to make an impact in your personal lives as well, check out thecooldown.com, featuring both little things you can do and big stories on the horizon in the area of sustainability.

There are so many of us working on these problems ?

We’re all in this together. One of my favorite things about business, especially global business, is that one of its core characteristics is pragmatism. Nobody can win the future if there isn’t one. We’ve all been playing chicken with this problem (and each other) for so long that urgency is now the consensus. So there’s a ton of people and companies working on this. I’ll learn and reference more of them over time, but I’ll start with those I’ve interacted with already.

The company I work for, Lenovo, is implementing many of the measures described above at scale and in depth, and we’ve got a ton of talent on the job:

• Claudia Contreras-Gomez, our leader for Global Sustainability Services, who reminded me that waste is bad business
• Stefan Larsen and Lars Fleron, who lead our Sustainability Consulting Services, in which we help customers take advantage of Lenovo features and services such as

Asset Recovery Services (supported in AP region by Christopher Law)

Bulk Shipment

Products with post-consumer content

Compostable packaging

• Subu Ramakrishnan, from our Infrastructure Solutions Group, who is helping customers lower power consumption in their data centers and develop carbon negative data center energy strategies based on liquid cooling, green energy and heat re-use.

…and that’s just a few of us. In the rest of the technology ecosystem, you’ve got some of my former colleagues at Accenture:

• Paul Carthy, as a Resources Industry Lead, sits right at the nexus of the carbon problem and carbon solutions. Check out his posts on Petronas’ “Race to Decarbonise”, methane detection and increasing sustainability in resources, energy, chemicals and manufacturing industries
• Sally Coldrick is Accenture’s Sustainability Lead for Growth Markets. Follow her and Colin Murray for more on how the biggest management consulting firm in the world is helping clients meet the moment.

Beyond that, here are some other great companies and resources to help you get started on or continue your sustainability journey:

• Signify – formerly known as Philips Lighting, offers energy efficiency solutions that happen to live in your lighting. Reach out to Gautam Midha or Fabrizio Pettazzi to see how they can help you.
• Schneider Electric – They’ve morphed from electrical systems to energy management with a sideline in water and wastewater management. Subscribe to their email newsletter here
• SDX Central – generally great IT idea resource, but also this
• BBP – Singapore company focused on energy use optimization in HVAC. Reach out to Boon Chye Hoe or Max Ong for more
• Sustainable Business Podcast (at least, the one I listen to)

The Sustainability Series, Part 2: The Basics of Carbon Accounting