The 2022 global risks report published by the World Economic Forum highlights climate action failure as the number one risk over the next decade. The effects are felt all over the planet in extreme heat, cold, massive precipitation, drought, or wildfire. Climate change affects us all. It is a global problem that we jointly need to work on to solve. GHG emissions are more than 50% higher than in 1990. On February 27, 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released Part 2, which paints a grim picture that we continue to spiral downward but some solutions are starting to emerge to curb the climate crisis. We need to urgently transition into a sustainable way of living where we stay well within the constraints of Earth. Humanity is currently taking significantly more than we put back in. We use the equivalent of 1.75 % of Earth’s resources to provide the resources we use and absorb our waste (Giné...

In business, as in life, change is inevitable. So far, in this chapter, we have discussed the environmental implications, but being a sustainable company also requires addressing critical social aspects such as social trends, labor, and politics. In the past, a company’s primary objective was to serve its shareholders, but that is rapidly changing to fulfill the needs of the employees, customers, partners and ecosystems, communities in which they operate, and social and climate issues.

The CEOs that keep their heads in the sand or deny climate change, as we’ve seen with a certain group of fossil-fuel companies and companies in some other industries, will increasingly be relegated to the graveyard of dinosaurs. – Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever, and co-author of the book Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take.

These CEOs are inevitably compelled to implement robust ESG programs. It is no longer optional...

Another long-term trend is the transition to a circular economy, which is likely to move faster with an increasing move to digitization and automation than in previous transformations. As we read earlier in the chapter, we are already consuming 1.75% of Earth’s resources, and we are not regenerating nearly enough to live within the constraints of the planet. In our current way of living, finite raw materials are extracted or non-virgin plastics are used, the products are manufactured, products are shipped to a distribution point, the customer buys and uses the products once, and at the end of the product’s lifetime, it is discarded with limited reusability or recycling – the process is linear. In a circular economy, we move from a linear process to a circular one. We stop producing waste in the first place. Nature itself – the circle of life – inspires the circular economy concept. Species are born, grown, decline...

On the surface, you might think that the usage of IT has a positive impact on the environment due to less business travel and commuting to work. Additionally, the use of videoconferencing tools from Microsoft and Zoom, leveraging supply chain management software from SAP and Oracle, leveraging digital twin technology for predicting asset failure, Adobe Sign, and DocuSign for eSignature, and countless other cloud solutions are available at your fingertips. The ICT industry contributes to a large percentage of overall energy consumption, CO2 emissions, and e-waste, but it is also part of the solution of enabling remote working, process efficiencies, and energy efficiencies. With roughly 53.6% or 4.4 billion of the global population now on the internet, the immense activity is stacking up alongside the massive e-waste from computers, tablets, and smartphones resulting in a whopping 57 million tons of e-waste generated globally each year (Why your...

What we do in the next 50 years will determine the next 10,000 years.

– Johan Rockström

As we reach the end of this chapter, if you were not already aware, you now have a better understanding of the great challenge humanity has in front of us to curb the climate crisis. As you learned earlier in the chapter, the environmental impact of technology is one of the most well-kept secrets of the IT industry. The environmental impact of IT is not insignificant. With the dramatic increase in IT in all sectors, projecting energy consumption will exceed the aviation industry by 4% or 5% by 2024 unless we find different ways to deliver IT more sustainably. That is why there is a step change needed toward sustainable IT practices. The purpose of this book is not to explain the intricacies of why we have a climate crisis, but what we can do as technology leaders to focus on the what and the how.

Naturally, every company’s starting point will be different. If...

• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): https://www.ipcc.ch/
• United Nations – Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): https://sdgs.un.org/goals
• Polman, P and Winston, A. (2021) Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take, Harvard Business Review Press
• Gates, B. (2021) How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, Allen Lane
• Doerr, J. (2021) Speed & Scale, Penguin Random House UK

• 2020. Apple 12 Product Environmental Report. October 13. Accessed March 13, 2022. https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/iphone/iPhone_12_PER_Oct2020.pdf
• Banerjee, Neela, Lisa Song, and David Hasemyer. 2015. Exxon’s Own Research Confirmed Fossil Fuels’ Role in Global Warming Decades Ago. Inside Climate News. September 16. Accessed January 28, 2022. https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16092015/exxons-own-research-confirmed-fossil-fuels-role-in-global-warming/
• Bay, Stephen. 2020. With the rise in home working, we need a scope 4 for GHG emissions. December 9. Accessed May 22, 2022. https://www.reutersevents.com/sustainability/rise-home-working-we-need-scope-4-ghg-emissions
• n.d. Carbon Disclosure Project. https://www.cdp.net/en
• 2021. CDP - Disclosure Insight Action. October 14. CDP reports record number of disclosures and unveils new strategy to help further tackle climate and ecological emergency
• 2020. Circular economy action...