Digital Sustainability: Support for Carbon Neutral World

We read a lot about Digital Carbon footprint – Buzz lines - “It is estimated that the carbon footprint linked to digital activities accounts for around 4% of the world’s total emissions: that represents 2 gigatonnes de CO2.” “Consumption of digital technology accounts for nearly 5% of global emissions, and the sector's emissions are rising exponentially." “Digital infrastructure and services can have a hugely negative impact on sustainability (the internet accounts for 3.7% of total global greenhouse gas emissions)” (Ref1)

But digital can also be an engine of sustainability — if it’s positioned effectively and at the center of your strategy.

What is Digital?

Digital is using or relating to computers and the internet.

Traditionally, digital means the use of numbers and the term comes from digit, or finger. Today, digital is synonymous with computer or an electronic signal sent as binary digits of either ON (the number one) or OFF (the number zero) or Digital describes systems that generate and process binary data.

What is sustainability?

Sustainability is the balance between the environment, equity, and economy.

Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs - UN World Commission. Sustainability is based on a simple principle: Everything that we need for our survival and well-being depends, either directly or indirectly, on our natural environment. To pursue sustainability is to create and maintain the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony to support present and future generations - US EPA

What is digital sustainability?

Digital sustainability, involves the use of digital technologies in everyday business applications to address climate-related issues and improve Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) outcomes. Digital can play an important role in combating climate change.  In other words, Digital sustainability is the practice of using digital technologies to minimize the negative environmental impact associated with them. This includes reducing energy consumption, carbon emissions, water use, and waste from within the business and its supply chains.

Digital sustainability’s dual role

There are two important roles digital technology can play in improving sustainability outcomes and addressing issues such as climate change. The first role is that of an enabler, in that digital solutions can be deployed to address. Example of the Internet of Things (IoT) and applications such as smart buildings, electricity grids, automation initiatives and supply chain/smart transport logistics. Another example of digital sustainability is artificial intelligence applications – a key focus for many organisations’ digital transformation programs. More data, more analytics, with use of technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence for sustainability predictions and potential consequences. A second and equally important role is the technology itself. How we can build and develop sustainable technologies and applications which they themselves reduce consumption of energy and decrease potential emissions. Like low emission products, green computing and green data centers etc.

Applying digital to sustainability

Digital sustainability requires addressing each material issue with a set of problem-specific solutions, leveraging information technology (IT), operational technology (OT) and engineering technology (ET), as well as non-technical innovations. For example, if a circular economy (a model that promotes reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling of existing materials and products as much as possible) is one of your sustainability goals, then possible solutions might be: IT and OT: blockchain to trace a material’s origin, or waste exchanges to facilitate cross-industry circularity. Engineering technology: material science to extend product life, improve recycling rate and enable easier upgrades. Non-technical innovation: a shift in marketing strategies to change customer behavior toward recycled products and service-based revenue streams (Ref2).

Digital sustainability for organisations

Considering the pressure on the business sector to reduce emissions and aim for goals around net zero or SDG’s. Organisations can visualise, track, benchmark and improve their ESG strategies. To become sustainability intelligent, organisations need advanced data analytics to manage the vast amounts of sustainability initiative-related data, utilize strategy visualization techniques, and design easy-to-access dashboards to be future-ready. In addition, data-driven systems that are powered by AI-based algorithms can equip organisations with strategy visualization capabilities to track sustainability efforts, design sustainability initiatives and optimize performance. Integrate analytics systems into their existing operations to bring environmental sustainability to the forefront of digital innovation and organisational transformation.

Organisations required data-driven digital platform that generates insights into how to improve their ESG performance and strategies, with a view to building a more sustainable business. Also Organisations need a high-level understanding of their ESG initiatives and sustainability strategy, how they are making progress against ESG objectives and potential sustainable development goals (SDGs) – so they know where they stand when it comes to their own annual report disclosure commitments.

Reference1: Digital sustainability: technology solutions to climate change, RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT, 24 March 2022 Businessthink UNSW Sydney. Reference2: What Is Digital Sustainability and How Does It Drive ESG Goals? –Gartner Article November 04, 2022