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After winning a long-drawn battle against the pandemic, businesses are facing the recession, the skill crisis, and the disruptive ripple effects of the war in Ukraine. While digital transformation was always in the plan, CIOs are moving the goalpost in favor of sustainability technology, swiftly moving it up in the executive agenda to respond to the strong headwinds. Many are left in a conundrum; why sustainability now, when the businesses are already suffering blows from all around? The reason is that today, the environment needs more attention than ever. Also, this tactical strategy stabilizes businesses with a promise of futurity, no matter how unpredictable the socio-political scenarios get.

Why Sustainable/Green Technology Adoption?

Companies with high sustainability performance across ESG indicators are not just projecting the planet; they are creating operational efficiency and financial opportunity by creating a bleeding edge. They optimize costs, make better asset usage, and are energy efficient. This entails a faster recovery from any harm they might have suffered during the pandemic or while fighting the global financial crisis.

Sustainable tech companies are creating a sustainable future for themselves.

As the pandemic affected operations worldwide, businesses following sustainability strategies were more resilient in that unexpected circumstance. They could continue their operations, resorting to safer ways of working. For instance, businesses already on the cloud could continue their functions as employees swiftly collaborated from their homes. Only companies with far-sighted sustainability strategies and planned risk assessment could thrive during the fast-changing pandemic.

On the other hand, businesses are driving significant ESG outcomes through it, as embracing sustainability and ranking high on ESG indicators can open wider opportunities awaiting them in investment and funding. Also, remember that breaching regulatory compliance can have a hefty cost.

It’s ditching losses in favor of opportunities and profits.

Is technology blocking sustainability, and can it be converted into a fundamental driver for sustainability?

The fact is that we are creating carbon footprints that are affecting global green emissions. These examples by BBC reinforce the need for sustainability tech, putting the whole situation into perspective:

Example:

If we were to rather crudely divide the 1.7 billion tonnes (1.6 billion tons) of greenhouse gas emissions estimated to be produced in the manufacture and running of digital technologies between all internet users around the world, it means each of us is responsible for 414kg (912lbs) of carbon dioxide a year. (Source: BBC)

There are sustainable shipping methods to enable solutions for a greener future.

Example:

While many companies claim to power their data centre’s using renewable energy, in some parts of the world they are still largely powered from the burning of fossil fuels.

In the US, data centres are responsible for 2% of the country’s electricity use, while globally they account for just under 200 terawatt Hours (TWh). According to the United Nation’s International Telecommunications Union, however, this figure has flatlined in recent years despite rising internet traffic and workloads. This is largely because of improved energy efficiency and the move to centralize data centres into giant facilities. (Source: BBC)

Discover how sustainable utilities is energizing a greener future.

Learn how companies can go about the change in terms of data centres and cloud providers.

Example:

The carbon footprint of our gadgets, the internet, and the systems supporting them account for about 3.7% of global greenhouse emissions, according to some estimates. It is similar to the amount produced by the airline industry globally, explains Mike Hazas, a researcher at Lancaster University. And these emissions are predicted to double by 2025. (Source: BBC).

Even the Climate Initiatives used the World Economic Forum platform in 2020 to spur climate change action initiatives and ensure that businesses, governments, and civil society work together to meet this commitment.

Watch a snippet from one of our panel discussions that can help you understand how technology can be your key to our success towards sustainable living.

Opportunity in sustainability technology

We spoke about care for the environment. The business reset for sustainable development is driven by care for the environment and the need to add business value. Here is the opportunity.

Efficiency

Businesses can be energy efficient by using the right resources in the bottom line. They can increase infrastructure utilization by taking the right steps. For instance, cloud platforms offer operational flexibility and savings as you no longer need to maintain the on-prem data centers. Office 365 study shows that IT experts reported at least 20% overall cost savings on leaving the on-prem data strategy and moving to the cloud.

While the first step towards sustainability is often to fix the infrastructure with cloud migration, there is much more to the sustainability technology equation. A few more Sustainable Technology examples are building APIs and moving toward a serverless environment, ditching the waste generated by the CPUs, and streamlining testing data environments. These are just some steps to maximize engineering efficiency and minimize infrastructure costs.

Besides, it empowers the business to collaborate in real-time for innovation, achieve effective decision-making, have transparency in processes, and set itself as an environmentally conscious business in society.

Value

Sustainability and corporates are a long-known love story. It’s a time proven that when corporates include sustainability in their operations, they are less likely to get impacted by the recession, as they have a better name in the market. Sustainable technology creates opportunities in these areas for business: internal IT, enterprise, and customer operations.

Besides, a good score on ESG brings consistent investments in your business, securing its future. Businesses are better positioned to anticipate risks and opportunities, be disposed to strategic thinking, and focus on long-term value creation.

Here are three examples from the Mckinsey Report:

1. 3M has long understood that being proactive about environmental risk can be a source of competitive advantage. The company has saved $2.2 billion since introducing its “pollution prevention pays” (3Ps) program, in 1975, preventing pollution up front by reformulating products, improving manufacturing processes, redesigning equipment, and recycling and reusing waste from production.

2. Another enterprise, a major water utility, achieved cost savings of almost $180 million per year thanks to lean initiatives aimed at improving preventive maintenance, refining spare-part inventory management, and tackling energy consumption and recovery from sludge.

3. FedEx, for its part, aims to convert its entire 35,000-vehicle fleet to electric or hybrid engines; to date, 20 percent have been converted, which has already reduced fuel consumption by more than 50 million gallons.  

"In the future, climate and ESG considerations will likely be at the heart of mainstream investing. Investors will tailor their investments and fulfill their fiduciary duties through better quality, more widely available data on sustainability and performance, and more informed judgments of strategic resilience."

Mark Carney
Governor Bank of England

Here is how we are helping businesses use tech for sustainability

Role of the CIO and How to Create Opportunity Through Sustainability

Sustainable technology is a strategic environmental need today and a question of business sustainability tomorrow. CIOs must take center stage in the discussions to ensure sustainability technology’s inclusion in the strategy and set clear goals for the organization. They can play a critical role in ensuring complete integration of it in the strategy and accelerate the efforts across the operations and departments.

Once considered nice to have, today, 90% of companies are adopting ESG solutions, marking a significant increase in corporate interest in environmental, social, and governance concerns, according to a 2022 global study by Capital Group. (Source: CIO.com)

The next place where they can contribute is to encourage transparency in operations and solution lifecycle, for transparency, measure the environmental cost attached to it, and reduce the waste. Measuring the impact of the existing systems and evaluating the environmental cost of adopting the new technological solution will only help you salvage the technology better. 

Partnering with the right tech leaders will help you always be inclusive of sustainability. Find a business with a similar mindset so that they reflect your strategies and ideas in their approach. Half of your struggle is gone when you have the right partner shouldering not just your challenges but environmental concerns too.

By taking the progressive step to make technology sustainable, they will be saving the planet and making their business stable in the future. Help your teams to identify the scope and introduce breakthrough innovation.

What is Stopping CIOs from Making the Move? Challenges Related to Sustainability technology adoption.

Nearly one-fifth of organizations say their biggest challenge is that they are not aware of the unintended consequences of technology. The lack of ready solutions is a big concern, as is the complexity associated with adopting these solutions. (source: Accenture). What they need is a strategic digital adoption.

How Is Nagarro Accelerating the Sustainability Technology Agenda for the CIOs

For us, sustainability is not just a strategy. It is a way of life. We are ushering conversations around building a culture of sustainability and ensuring that the goal is achieved in every solution we build for our customers with a breakthrough approach.

Recognizing our efforts, Nagarro was assessed as “strong in sustainability” in its first-ever external ESG assessment and rated as ‘Green’, which indicates strong performance in all three sustainability parameters – Environment, Social, and Governance. Nagarro’s ‘Custodian of Entrepreneurship in the Organization’ and co-founder— Manas Human, took this opportunity to re-emphasize that “ESG is naturally embedded in Nagarro’s CARING core values and in our culture. We are committed to continuing and expanding our ESG efforts”.

We have successfully delivered several sustainability technologies in the recent past. Talk to us to explore how we can contribute to helping you build your business into a sustainable business that always stands strong.