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4 ways companies can turn sustainability goals into actions

Why are 93% of companies still struggling to be sustainable?

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We all recognize the importance of environmental, social, and corporate governance efforts—from reducing electricity needs and carbon emissions to ensuring diversity in product development—so why are ESG goals proving so difficult for companies to meet in practice? To find out, Quartz and Avanade surveyed 750 tech executives and 750 sustainability leaders from the US, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, Ireland, Australia, and Canada.

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The survey showed that business decision-makers across five major industries—financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and energy/utilities—unanimously agree: environmental and social sustainability is important. But the data also makes their dilemma clear.

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On one hand, leaders know sustainability innovation benefits not just the planet and their people, but also their fundamental company goals: satisfying customer expectations, improving operational efficiency, complying with regulations and compliance, and meeting expectations of talent and investors. And all five sectors ranked the main sustainability driver as business innovation and growth.

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However, making significant transformation requires commitment, and that’s a daunting prospect for executives. When asked to list the primary limitations their organization faces in achieving their sustainability objectives, 45% said business priorities above sustainability objectives, while 35% said fear of an economic slowdown.

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To achieve their sustainability goals, these companies need to be embracing digital strategies, which will, in fact, support their bottom-lines in the process. Another global study by Avanade found that organizations could earn an extra $1 billion per year in revenue and reduce operational costs by more than 11% through adopting a holistic approach to cloud technology, apps, and modern engineering techniques.

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This anxiety and competing goals are clearly hampering their achievement of their ESG targets. For example, nearly two-third of respondents say their companies are not building diversity into product development, and a quarter don’t even have a plan in place for reaching their goals.

Another 14% of executives are midway through executing their ESG plan but experiencing challenges. In fact, 93% of respondents said they haven’t completed their ESG plan. For the manufacturing vertical, that number is even higher.

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It’s no wonder that less than half of executives are confident they will hit their ESG targets on time.

Based on this new first-party data, here are four actionable insights into the challenges of ESG initiatives—and how an incremental, digital-first approach can help.

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#1 When it comes to sustainability, digital is paramount — so fund it accordingly.

As first-adopters start to experiment with Web3 and the Internet of Things, it’s clear that digital innovation is fundamental to ESG goals. In fact, 63% of executives across all industries told us that digital is “very important” to their sustainability objectives.

For industries with complicated supply chains or complex processes, digital upgrades are even more critical to accelerating ESG efforts. Sixty-eight percent of executives in manufacturing, 72% of those in retail, and 73% of those in energy and utilities said digital was “very important”.

But yet again, there’s a disconnect. Ninety-two percent of respondents said that less than three-quarters of their digital budget supports their sustainability goals. Even in the tech powerhouses of Germany and Japan, only 4% of the survey group said that at least three-quarters of their organization’s digital innovation budget supports achieving their ESG targets. That’s an issue.

If you want to go greener, you must put your money where your mission is.

If you want to go greener, you must put your money where your mission is. But those investments tend to bear fruit quickly. Accenture estimates that migrating current applications to an infrastructure as a service (IAAS) cloud can reduce carbon emissions by more than 84%. If those applications are designed specifically for the cloud, that number jumps to 98%.

And as your carbon footprint shrinks, your wallet often expands. One European water utility used Microsoft Azure Integration Services to connect various applications and services, reducing its operational costs by 65% in the process.

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#2 The cloud is the first step to other ESG levers.

The cloud that hosts so much of our work life is important, but companies should expand how they define their sustainability “stack”. Executives across financial services, health, manufacturing, retail, and energy and utilities are embracing artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, but it’s the cloud that’s their first choice. They aren’t alone.

Across all industries, 61% of executives say that cloud services are the only tool their organization is currently considering and/or already using to achieve its environmental goals.

But there are other solutions to mine. For example, Avanade built a data platform for SSE Renewables, a leading producer and operator of renewable energy in the UK and Ireland. The AI-powered solution automated the tracking and recording of native species that could be affected by wind or hydro installations, helping the team minimize their environmental impact.

However, sustainability solutions don’t need to be so bespoke. Simply employing green software principles, like reducing electricity needs, optimizing physical resources, and balancing software usage by time or region, can have a huge impact.

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In fact, employing this approach in one division of a large enterprise alone could be the equivalent of keeping 26,000 fossil-fueled cars off the road for one year — but only 30% of our respondents are using green software principles.

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#3 Don’t hide your sustainability successes.

In today’s media landscape, everyone’s a critic, especially when it comes to ESG goals. So it’s understandable that only a third of executives say that their company isn’t susceptible to the charge of greenwashing.

However, certain industries are especially nervous about being seen as in it for the wrong reasons — and it’s not necessarily the ones you might think. While 22% of executives in the carbon-heavy manufacturing sector believe their companies are “very susceptible” to the charge of greenwashing, a stunning 38% of those in financial services say the same. That’s seven points higher than even the energy and utility folks, showing that industry perceptions aren’t perfectly correlated with the amount of emissions you’re generating.

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To mitigate reputational risks requires companies to continually and credibly demonstrate progress towards their ESG goals. To be true stewards, companies have to take measurable actions, and then meaningfully communicate the accomplishments.

Software can help on this front by allowing you to integrate existing data sources and report progress to stakeholders in as little as a month.

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#4 Sustainability is a process, not an endpoint.

Especially considering the turbulent financial news these days, companies don’t want to commit to a transformative green overhaul they might regret later. But here’s the good news: They don’t have to.

It’s actually more efficient to take small, practical digital actions that make an impact within weeks, rather than fixating on daunting and ambitious future targets. For example, just being aware of how much carbon your software is producing, and where and when it’s producing it, enables

you to make better decisions. Armed with this data, you can shift the time or place that workloads are run to take advantage of renewable or low-carbon sources of energy.

This kind of tracking can complement the social facets of ESG initiatives as well. Thirty-eight percent of respondents said that the company’s goals included measuring the diversity of their workforce and publishing the data. Making sustainability core to doing business achieves ESG and profitability benefits in parallel.

Everyone is talking about sustainability, but our research shows that most leaders are challenged to take practical actions with digital.

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4 ways leaders can turn ambitious goals into practical actions

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WEF | 3 ways CEOs can take sustainability programmes to the next level

3 ways CEOs can take sustainability programmes to the next level

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  • The link between digital transformation and sustainability is often overlooked.

  • Digitalization can accelerate the path to a greener economy and society.

  • CEOs can make sustainability programmes even more effective.

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We are entering a post-greenwashing era with the necessary shift from talking and measuring to acting for serious impact. In response, many firms have established sustainability programmes and partnerships to address social and environmental issues.

At the same time, digital technology has matured to the point where it can serve as a force multiplier for social impact. Yet the opportunity to make corporate sustainability initiatives even more effective through the use of technology is too often overlooked.

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Many executives still view sustainability and technology as separate priorities and even opposing goals. The opposite is true, as the interplay between digitalization and sustainability opens up brilliant opportunities to create a greener economy and society.

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In fact, sustainability transformation could even become the biggest use case for digitalization and at the same time, digital transformation will radically alter all dimensions of global societies and economies and will therefore change the interpretation of the sustainability paradigm itself.

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Digital technologies can help deliver the Sustainable Development Goals

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  • Smart data for accurate sustainability progress: By acquiring data from diverse and disparate sources, transforming them towards consistent data taxonomies, and using advanced analytics capabilities, digital helps to set clear standards and measure sustainability progress. Marubeni, a diversified Japanese trading company, established in its IT and logistics division an overarching data acquisition, cleansing, and harmonization process, and gained a single source of truth for its complete environmental footprint in the form of a proof of concept. This included Scope 1 and 2 emissions, energy, water, waste, hazardous materials, etc. across 12 industries with 310 subsidiaries in 66 countries.

  • Blockchain enabled circularity: Turning the circular economy promise into reality requires closing and improving the loop and capturing value from the loop for all stakeholders. On a digital level, this requires sharing and tracking product information across distributed systems and ledgers with dispersed stakeholders. Indian aluminum producer Novelis recycles production scrap and materials returned by consumers, significantly reducing raw material consumption and carbon emissions. Smart contracts enable transactions along the supply chain between all actors,e.g. on CO2/t, without sharing sensitive and proprietary information on material composition. This strengthens customer confidence in the origin and authenticity of products and ensures compliance with regulations.

  • Digital twin for supply chain modelling: To achieve transparency and traceability of resources and products along the supply chain, digital twins – digital equivalents of the physical end-to-end value chain network – play a central role. Technically, this requires a shift toward integrated planning approaches, often supported by artificial intelligence. Such an “inside-out” modelling [modelling with ll] process often begins with Scope 1 and 2 emissions, environmental footprint. In a next step, a digital twin can enable the ability to explore production and transport processes to a high level of detail and allocate emission measurements to specific product carbon footprints. With this goal in mind, Japan’s JFE Steel has established tracking and management of the product carbon footprint using primary data from the steel-making process in form of an R&D initiative. In total, JFE plans to invest $7.2 billion in low-carbon technologies to meet its 2030 target of reducing CO2 emissions by 30%.

  • Green computing: Companies must also be aware of the environmental aspects associated with the increased use of technology, e.g. an increase in energy demand. For example, this needs to be mitigated through green data centres, green cloud technology services, and the reuse of technology components. On the last point, Google recycles and reuses its data centre system components at the end of their lifecycle. A digital twin and decision intelligence allows it to forecast and schedule the reverse flow of materials back into the supply network. Google’s refurbishment rate is about 23%, while the number of resold components has increased significantly.

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Three CEO opportunities for next-level sustainability

Digitalization, used responsibly, can significantly accelerate the path to true sustainability. These three often overlooked levers can help make today’s sustainability programmes even more effective.

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1. Rethink business model logic

There is no doubt that the CEO plays a central role in influencing and steering the integration of sustainability into the corporate strategy and the firm’s value creation system. With this in mind, it’s surprising that only 33% of employees said that their company’s top leadership leads by example. Employees want leaders who don’t just take a stand. Driving sustainability from the boardroom requires moving from commitment to action. If leaders can’t change, the organization cannot either.

The CEO’s natural role is to rethink the company’s business models and find new ways of creating, delivering, and capturing value. However, many incumbents are still relying on yesterday’s business model logic. The first assumption to be challenged is that sustainability comes at a cost. Following the traditional logic “I do my business, I have revenue, I have costs, I make a profit, and then after I make my profit, I decide how much of my profit to give to good causes” is no longer good enough. It means I am charitable if I spend some of my profit on something good. And if I am under pressure with my profits, there is nothing to do good with.

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CEOs can take sustainability programmes to the next level

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COP27 | Corporate climate pledges rife with greenwashing

COP27 – Corporate climate pledges rife with greenwashing – U.N. expert group

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  • Report aims to draw ‘red line’ around false claims

  • Group recommends check list for quality

  • Says fossil fuel expansion cannot be net-zero aligned

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Promises by companies, banks and cities to achieve net-zero emissions often amount to little more than greenwashing, U.N. experts said in a report on Tuesday as they set out proposed new standards to harden net-zero claims.

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The report, released at the COP27 climate conference in Egypt, is intended to draw a “red line” around false claims of progress in the fight against global warming that can confuse consumers, investors and policy makers.

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COP27 – Corporate climate pledges rife with greenwashing – U.N. expert group

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Is net zero still relevant and achievable?

There is ambiguity around net zero, what it means and how we achieve it. It’s time for business to step up the pace of climate action and push for stronger more decisive national action plans to get us back on track for global 1.5 degrees.

  • How can companies adopt real climate solutions and implement net zero roadmaps with short-term targets that support long-term climate goals?

  • How can we create a sense of urgency to decarbonise rather than rely on carbon offsetting and carbon removal technologies?

  • How do we move beyond net zero to absolute zero?

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Is net zero still relevant and achievable?

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Green | pgf500 SaaS, PGF7T token

pgf500 has a token on the Ethereum network, called PGF7T, which you can use to pay for subscriptions and services within the pgf500 SaaS platform.

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Decentralized Web3 technologies could improve coordination around tackling climate change because they use local knowledge and actors to guide policies and put funding where it’s needed.

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Climate change is a global coordination problem.

The system has failed to coordinate effective policies and capital investment into the commitments necessary to address the most pressing threat to humanity.

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Race To Zero is a global campaign to rally leadership and support from businesses, cities, regions, investors for a healthy, resilient, zero carbon recovery that prevents future threats, creates decent jobs, and unlocks inclusive, sustainable growth.

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You will need to have Metamask to pay with PGF7T token.

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We have chosen to adopt blockchain technology for the launch of 2 innovative decentralized Dapps.

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We believe in Web3 and in the strength of communities.

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The token is on the Ethereum smart contract 0x9fadea1aff842d407893e21dbd0e2017b4c287b6 ,

and the code is public at https://etherscan.io/address/0x9fadea1aff842d407893e21dbd0e2017b4c287b6#code

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QuickSwap smart contract:

0xdd0fDc648a9dbC9be5A735FE4561893a13399Da2

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🔴 It is possible to buy and sell PGF7T tokens on Uniswap and QuickSwap Exchanges.

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PGF7T token will be listed on other Exchanges soon.

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Price:  PGF7T

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Enjoy the Journey 🚀

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pgf500 Team

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Posted on

WEF | 3 ways CEOs can take sustainability programmes to the next level

3 ways CEOs can take sustainability programmes to the next level

.

.

  • The link between digital transformation and sustainability is often overlooked.

  • Digitalization can accelerate the path to a greener economy and society.

  • CEOs can make sustainability programmes even more effective.

.

We are entering a post-greenwashing era with the necessary shift from talking and measuring to acting for serious impact. In response, many firms have established sustainability programmes and partnerships to address social and environmental issues.

At the same time, digital technology has matured to the point where it can serve as a force multiplier for social impact. Yet the opportunity to make corporate sustainability initiatives even more effective through the use of technology is too often overlooked.

.

Many executives still view sustainability and technology as separate priorities and even opposing goals. The opposite is true, as the interplay between digitalization and sustainability opens up brilliant opportunities to create a greener economy and society.

.

In fact, sustainability transformation could even become the biggest use case for digitalization and at the same time, digital transformation will radically alter all dimensions of global societies and economies and will therefore change the interpretation of the sustainability paradigm itself.

.

Digital technologies can help deliver the Sustainable Development Goals

.

  • Smart data for accurate sustainability progress: By acquiring data from diverse and disparate sources, transforming them towards consistent data taxonomies, and using advanced analytics capabilities, digital helps to set clear standards and measure sustainability progress. Marubeni, a diversified Japanese trading company, established in its IT and logistics division an overarching data acquisition, cleansing, and harmonization process, and gained a single source of truth for its complete environmental footprint in the form of a proof of concept. This included Scope 1 and 2 emissions, energy, water, waste, hazardous materials, etc. across 12 industries with 310 subsidiaries in 66 countries.

  • Blockchain enabled circularity: Turning the circular economy promise into reality requires closing and improving the loop and capturing value from the loop for all stakeholders. On a digital level, this requires sharing and tracking product information across distributed systems and ledgers with dispersed stakeholders. Indian aluminum producer Novelis recycles production scrap and materials returned by consumers, significantly reducing raw material consumption and carbon emissions. Smart contracts enable transactions along the supply chain between all actors,e.g. on CO2/t, without sharing sensitive and proprietary information on material composition. This strengthens customer confidence in the origin and authenticity of products and ensures compliance with regulations.

  • Digital twin for supply chain modelling: To achieve transparency and traceability of resources and products along the supply chain, digital twins – digital equivalents of the physical end-to-end value chain network – play a central role. Technically, this requires a shift toward integrated planning approaches, often supported by artificial intelligence. Such an “inside-out” modelling [modelling with ll] process often begins with Scope 1 and 2 emissions, environmental footprint. In a next step, a digital twin can enable the ability to explore production and transport processes to a high level of detail and allocate emission measurements to specific product carbon footprints. With this goal in mind, Japan’s JFE Steel has established tracking and management of the product carbon footprint using primary data from the steel-making process in form of an R&D initiative. In total, JFE plans to invest $7.2 billion in low-carbon technologies to meet its 2030 target of reducing CO2 emissions by 30%.

  • Green computing: Companies must also be aware of the environmental aspects associated with the increased use of technology, e.g. an increase in energy demand. For example, this needs to be mitigated through green data centres, green cloud technology services, and the reuse of technology components. On the last point, Google recycles and reuses its data centre system components at the end of their lifecycle. A digital twin and decision intelligence allows it to forecast and schedule the reverse flow of materials back into the supply network. Google’s refurbishment rate is about 23%, while the number of resold components has increased significantly.

.

Three CEO opportunities for next-level sustainability

Digitalization, used responsibly, can significantly accelerate the path to true sustainability. These three often overlooked levers can help make today’s sustainability programmes even more effective.

.

1. Rethink business model logic

There is no doubt that the CEO plays a central role in influencing and steering the integration of sustainability into the corporate strategy and the firm’s value creation system. With this in mind, it’s surprising that only 33% of employees said that their company’s top leadership leads by example. Employees want leaders who don’t just take a stand. Driving sustainability from the boardroom requires moving from commitment to action. If leaders can’t change, the organization cannot either.

The CEO’s natural role is to rethink the company’s business models and find new ways of creating, delivering, and capturing value. However, many incumbents are still relying on yesterday’s business model logic. The first assumption to be challenged is that sustainability comes at a cost. Following the traditional logic “I do my business, I have revenue, I have costs, I make a profit, and then after I make my profit, I decide how much of my profit to give to good causes” is no longer good enough. It means I am charitable if I spend some of my profit on something good. And if I am under pressure with my profits, there is nothing to do good with.

…..

…..

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CEOs can take sustainability programmes to the next level

.

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Posted on

WEO22 | World Energy Outlook is out

The global energy crisis can be a historic turning point towards a cleaner & more secure future

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We just released this year’s edition of our flagship publication, the World Energy Outlook (WEO), which shows that global energy crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is causing profound and long-lasting changes that have the potential to hasten the transition to a more sustainable and secure energy system.

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The report, the gold standard for energy analysis, examines the ongoing shock of unprecedented breadth and complexity that has already caused major tremors in natural gas, coal, electricity and oil markets. It assesses the policy responses by governments around the world, which promise to accelerate the transition to clean energy.

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And it weighs how these changes measure up against the world’s climate commitments and energy security needs.

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Read about the key findings – including what the latest developments mean for the long-term outlook for fossil fuels, renewables, energy efficiency and more – in the press release and executive summary.

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Go deeper by exploring more of the online content from this year’s WEO, including the full report available to download for free.

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Watch the livestreamed launch event at 11 am Paris time today with our Executive Director Fatih Birol and lead authors Laura Cozzi and Tim Gould.

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For the first time, this year’s World Energy Outlook includes a series of interactive data stories that enable you to explore the key findings visually. Take a look!

World Energy Outlook 2022

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The Sustainable Business Model Canvas, 11 Steps to designing and communicating a successful sustainability strategy | Video

The Sustainable Business Model Canvas, 11 Steps to designing and communicating a successful sustainability strategy

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Sustainable Business Model Canvas – Video

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Sustainable business model: a business model that creates, delivers, and captures value for all its stakeholders without depleting the natural, economic, and social capital it relies on.

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✅ Change your business strategy. Go Green!

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pgf500 Team

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