A Transparent Sustainable Technology Strategy Helps Companies Live Up To Their Green Ambitions

New research from Accenture has found organisations are more likely to achieve their sustainability commitments through the power of technology, but few are utilising it to enable and scale sustainability projects or making the technology itself more sustainable.

92% of global companies surveyed aimed to be Carbon Zero by 2030. While all cited the importance of technology to sustainability, just 7% had fully integrated their technology and business strategies.

Romain Groleau, Managing Director, Sustainable Technology, Accenture ANZ said most companies have a long way to go in designing, implementing and achieving a sustainable technology strategy.

“The survey shows that as businesses set ever more ambitious environmental, social and governance goals (ESG), their sustainability and technology strategies need to become more tightly integrated. The problem is very few are doing this effectively and there are a number of reasons for this.

“About a fifth of executives are not aware of the unintended consequences of technology, or whether the technology they currently use is sustainable. A third struggle with the complexity of transforming their legacy systems sustainably while 40% believe the right solutions are not available or are yet to mature.

“This leads to what we call the ‘intent-action gap’. That is, it’s easy to make promises but its much harder to implement changes to manufacturing and sales processes. Many companies set ambitious net-zero targets but they find themselves making trade-offs between their business and sustainability goals.

“Advanced technologies such as AI, blockchain, IoT, cloud computing and data analytics can help businesses achieve both goals with much less need for tradeoffs.”

Mr Groleau said an effective sustainable technology strategy helps drive business growth and ESG performance and accelerates transformation by integrating three connected but disparate elements.

1. Sustainability by technology - This uses technology innovation to drive sustainability initiatives and transform the business model.

2. Sustainability in technology - This measures the ESG impacts of the technology itself, and works to ensure it’s designed, developed and deployed sustainably.

3. Sustainability at scale - This orchestrates an ecosystem of businesses, technology companies, startups, non-profits and government organisations to harness technology in completely new ways, very often by working together. It enables the ‘wicked problems’ of this decade to be solved. 
 

Sustainability by technology
 

Accenture identifies five key areas for organisations to prioritise their deployment of technology.

1. Accelerating net-zero transitions.

2. Moving toward sustainable value chains.

3. Promoting sustainable choices for customers.

4. Measurement, reporting and performance on ESG goals.

5. Building a sustainable organisation.

“The use of technologies such as AI, cloud, blockchain, data analytics, IoT are powerful sustainability tools,” Mr Groleau said. 
 

“70% of surveyed companies said they have used AI to reduce emissions in production and operations. One great example of this is a global building materials company that launched a groundbreaking application powered by machine learning to predict cement strength in real-time during production. This meant fewer raw materials need to be used to test cement strength yielding a reduction of 13,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per plant per year.”

Sustainability in tech

It is estimated the ICT sector’s share of our world’s carbon footprint has expanded from just 1.5% in 2007, to 4% today.
 

However, ICT’s global carbon footprint is heading towards 14% by 2040.Left unchecked, the rising tide of data and power consumption, including the rapid increase in power-intensive technologies such as AI and blockchain will thrust carbon emissions far beyond their current levels.
 

The report also notes that currently only about 17% of e-waste collected is recycled - while most organisations recycle less than 10% of their hardware.
 

Accenture says CIOs can make technology more sustainable by concentrating on three key areas.

1. Think net zero. Embrace green software.

2. Build trustworthy systems. Incorporate privacy, fairness, transparency, robustness and accessibility.

3. Institute the right governance mechanisms.

“A green software framework includes a green software development lifecycle, UI/UX, AI, cloud and data centers, data, distributed ledger technology and infrastructure.

“Organisations could also look to shift the current ‘take-make-waste’ infrastructure model to a ‘take-make-take-make’ model. This keeps devices operational as long as possible, then reuses and recycles the raw materials in zero-waste value chains.”
 

Sustainability at scale

Because no single organisation can hope to undertake global sustainability challenges or create impact at scale on its own, the report says companies will have to rethink technology use and work together to decarbonise the entire value chain.
 

“Already, 43% of surveyed companies have joined industry collaborations, alliances and advocacy groups focused on eco-friendly technology.
 

“But delivering sustainability at scale will need more focused attention and technology standardisation, and stakeholders will need to see how they’ll benefit from participating in these broader initiatives.
 

“In turn, technology will need to be fundamentally reimagined to help change human behaviour, rethink how we produce and consume resources, and rebuild entire industry clusters to ensure that United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are met,” Mr Groleau said.
 

The report states most surveyed companies are focused on reducing Scope 1 emissions (direct emissions generated by their operations) and Scope 2 emissions (indirect emissions related to their purchase of electricity, steam, heat and cooling). It concludes that organisations will need to increasingly pursue decarbonisation efforts on Scope 3 emissions - the indirect emissions generated in their value chains, but not by activities companies own or control.

“Delivering on the sustainability agenda will be impossible without technology.

“Making the technology itself more sustainable is often neglected, but is becoming increasingly important as organisations respond to customer, investor and employee demands.

“Creating and implementing a comprehensive sustainable technology strategy must now become the core mission of purpose-driven CIOs. The responsibility is huge, but the opportunity is even bigger.”

The Uniting technology and sustainability report can be accessed on the Accenture website here.

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