Why Sustainability Is An Essential Ingredient For Digital Transformation

A key priority today for any ethical company is reducing its environmental impact and contribution to climate change. In the technology sector many companies have set ambitious targets in order to become carbon neutral, and technology itself can often be a catalyst for this change.

Big Data, the internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) are all being put to use in innovative applications that can contribute to making the world cleaner and greener. They can also be used to drive human progress, improving diversity and fairness in industry, which we know will always have positive implications for both business and wider society.

I recently had the chance to speak to Dell’s Director of Global Social Sales Strategy and Customer Engagement, Louise Koch. As a company that sells 200,000 electronic devices every single day, Dell has a huge responsibility when it comes to minimizing the impact its activities have on the environment. As well as becoming carbon neutral by 2050, it has recently developed what it calls Progress Made Real, a set of 22 goals to be achieved by 2030 that include a 50% reduction in carbon emissions. Together, the goals constitute four “pillars” which are advancing sustainability, diversity and inclusion, transforming lives, and ethics and privacy. Working within this framework, the aim is that by 2030 Dell Technologies will take back and recycle one device for every new device it sells into the world. On top of this, all of the materials used for packaging, and half of the materials used to create its products, will be recycled.

As Louise tells me during our conversation, “This is far more than a fancy Power Point, this is really about a long-lasting positive impact for people and planet – it’s also about leveraging our competencies and our reach as a global company to do more good in the world.”

All of it follows on from work that has seen Dell reduce the energy consumption of its products over their entire lifecycle by 80% over the past eight years. Achieving this has required coordinated efforts between its core design and manufacturing operations as well as its upstream supply chain and downstream user base.

Another tech company that is taking sustainability and social responsibility very seriously is Intel, which plans to achieve 100% renewable energy across all operations by 2030, ensures ethical business practices, and works with their customers and partners to transform product energy use and apply technology to reduce computing-related climate impacts across the global economy.

Both Intel and Dell are supporting and encouraging their customers in their own efforts to improve the world. One example is a partnership with Intel aimed at helping the citizens of the Great Barrier Reef with their Great Reef Census. This is a crowd-sourced effort to collect more data on the condition of the barrier reef, by harnessing the network of tourist boats, fishing vessels, divers and even superyachts that pass through the 350,000 square kilometers of ocean that it covers. It involved developing tools that allow images to be captured and submitted in real-time. This requires robust, low-power devices that can stand up to the extreme conditions while operating at sea for long periods of time. The data is used to identify hazards threatening the reef ecosystem, and more efficiently plan interventions and regeneration activity.

It is also helping to reduce the carbon footprint of data centers around with world, as can be seen in its collaboration with Windcloud, with the aim of creating the world’s first CO2-absorbing data centers. A factor that is important here is the ability of Dell’s PowerEdge servers to run at a warmer temperature than other server hardware – reducing the need for cooling, and therefore decreasing energy requirements. The heat is also used to cultivate an algae farm on the data center roof, in order to further cut carbon emissions.

These are both powerful examples of technology being used to tackle very large-scale problems, by creating solutions that can rapidly be replicated across the world, wherever they are most likely to benefit.

As far as human progress goes, a realty exciting initiative that Dell is taking a lead with is something that is called their Solar Learning Labs. These are basically self-contained classrooms built inside refurbished shipping containers, capable of generating all the power they need to run from solar panels fixed to the roof. Each Solar Learning Lab contains 12 computer workstations and all of the connectivity and networking hardware needed to get them online. So far Dell as deployed 21 of these mobile, self-contained classrooms, in partnership with the charity Computer Aid International, and they are helping provide an education to children in remote communities across Africa, Latin America and Australia.

Louise tells me that through this program she herself has become involved with mentoring a 13-year-old girl from Johannesburg with dreams of becoming a doctor. Access to Solar Learning Lab resources mean that this ambition, which would previously have been almost unimaginable for someone with her background, is now an achievable possibility – very inspiring!

Technology can be hugely transformative, and I’ve always believed that those with access to it also have the responsibility to ensure it is used to tackle the biggest and most urgent problems facing our people and the planet. Everybody understands the dangers posed to the environment by carbon emissions and climate change, and at the same time we are becoming more aware of the importance of diversity and fairness when it comes to building strong organizations and indeed societies. My hope is that seeing companies like Dell and Intel tackling these issues head-on, will inspire individuals and other organizations to create their own innovative solutions to the problems we’re facing.?

For more on the topic of artificial intelligence, have a look at my book ‘The Intelligence Revolution: Transforming Your Business With AI’.

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About Bernard Marr

Bernard Marr?is a world-renowned futurist, influencer and thought leader in the field of business and technology. He is the author of 18 best-selling books, writes a regular column for Forbes and advises and coaches many of the world’s best-known organisations. He has over 2 million social media followers and was ranked by LinkedIn as one of the top 5 business influencers in the world and the No 1 influencer in the UK.